AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Characteristics of Particle Size Distributions for Two Sites in New York State
JOSEPH P. MARTO, James Schwab, Fangqun Yu, Gan Luo, University at Albany, SUNY
Abstract Number: 563 Working Group: Remote and Regional Atmospheric Aerosol
Abstract Atmospheric particulate matter (PM) is known to influence air quality, as a pollutant itself and through direct and indirect roles it plays in the atmosphere for formation of cloud condensation nuclei and providing surface for atmospheric chemistry. Direct observation of particle size distributions (PSDs) for PM allows for insight into the processes controlling PM such as localized formation due to new particle formation (NPF) events, internal processing due to coagulation and condensation, and transport from local and regional pollutant sources. While these processes are consistently happening to PM within the troposphere, their individual strengths vary dramatically with different atmospheric regimes. To explore the relative strengths of controls over PSDs, two field campaigns were performed at sites in New York State, at rural Pinnacle State Park for April 2017-April 2018 and urban Queens College for May 2018-June 2019 using two instruments to capture continuous size distributions for particles between 5.6 nm-20 µm. Presented here are findings for the processes contributing to size, shape, amplitude and time evolution of the particle size distributions, and how they vary between sites and seasonally within each site.