Abstract View
Performance Assessment and Field Operation of a Portable Optical Particle Spectrometer (POPS)
FAN MEI, Mikhail Pekour, Jason Tomlinson, Beat Schmid, Darielle Dexheimer, Casey Michael Longbottom, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Abstract Number: 25
Working Group: Instrumentation and Methods
Abstract
Given that the aerosol population distributes heterogeneously in the vertical and horizontal dimensions, accurate representation of atmospheric aerosol properties is a long-standing problem in atmospheric research. This study focuses on determining the operational envelope of a POPS for in-situ airborne measurements. It suggests a POPS can maintain its performance under different environmental conditions as long as the laser temperature remains above 25 C and the aerosol flow temperature inside the optical chamber is 15 C higher than the ambient temperature. The comparison between POPS and an Ultra-High Sensitivity Aerosol Spectrometer (UHSAS) suggests that the coincidence error is less than 25% when the measured number concentration is less than 4000 cm-3. The measured size accuracy by both instruments remained unaffected up to 15,000 cm-3. While both instruments' sizing accuracy is affected by the aerosol chemical composition and morphology, the influence is more profound on the POPS.