Abstract

Freshly emitted soot particles are fractal-like aggregates, but atmospheric processes often transform their morphology. Morphology of soot particles plays an important role in determining their optical properties, life cycle and hence their effect on Earth’s radiative balance. However, little is known about the morphology of soot particles that participated in cold cloud processes. Here we report results from laboratory experiments that simulate cold cloud processing of diesel soot particles by allowing them to form supercooled droplets and ice crystals at −20 and −40 °C, respectively. Electron microscopy revealed that soot residuals from ice crystals were more compact (roundness ∼0.55) than those from supercooled droplets (roundness ∼0.45), while nascent soot particles were the least compact (roundness ∼0.41). Optical simulations using the discrete dipole approximation showed that the more compact structure enhances soot single scattering albedo by a factor up to 1.4, thereby reducing the top-of-the-atmosphere direct radiative forcing by ∼63%. These results underscore that climate models should consider the morphological evolution of soot particles due to cold cloud processing to improve the estimate of direct radiative forcing of soot.

Details

Title
Morphology of diesel soot residuals from supercooled water droplets and ice crystals: implications for optical properties
Author
China, Swarup 1 ; Kulkarni, Gourihar 2 ; Scarnato, Barbara V 3 ; Sharma, Noopur 4 ; Pekour, Mikhail 2 ; Shilling, John E 2 ; Wilson, Jacqueline 5 ; Zelenyuk, Alla 5 ; Chand, Duli 2 ; Liu, Shang 6 ; Aiken, Allison C 7 ; Dubey, Manvendra 7 ; Laskin, Alexander 8 ; Zaveri, Rahul A 2 ; Mazzoleni, Claudio 4 

 Atmospheric Sciences Program and Physics Department, Michigan Technological University, Houghton MI, USA; Now at: Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA, USA 
 Atmospheric Sciences and Global Change Division, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA, USA 
 Department of Meteorology, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey CA, USA 
 Atmospheric Sciences Program and Physics Department, Michigan Technological University, Houghton MI, USA 
 Chemical Physics and Analysis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA, USA 
 Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National laboratory, Los Alamos NM, USA; Now at: Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder CO, USA 
 Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National laboratory, Los Alamos NM, USA 
 Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland WA, USA 
Publication year
2015
Publication date
Nov 2015
Publisher
IOP Publishing
e-ISSN
17489326
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2550043585
Copyright
© 2015. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.