ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-5-409-2005 On the growth of nucleation mode particles: source rates of condensable vapor in polluted and clean environments Kulmala M. 1 Petäjä T. 1 Mönkkönen P. 1 Koponen I. K. 1 Dal Maso M. 1 Aalto P. P. 1 Lehtinen K. E. J. 2 Kerminen V.-M. 3 Department of Physical Sciences, University of Helsinki, P.O. BOX 64, FIN-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland Finnish Meteorological Institute and University of Kuopio, P.O. BOX 1627, FIN-70211 Kuopio, Finland Finnish Meteorological Institute, Research and Development, Climate and Global Change, Sahaajankatu 20E, FIN-00880 Helsinki, Finland 10 02 2005 5 2 409 416 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/5/409/2005/acp-5-409-2005.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/5/409/2005/acp-5-409-2005.pdf

The growth properties of nucleation mode particles were investigated. The variation of source rates of condensable vapors in different locations and environmental conditions was analyzed. The measurements were performed in background stations in Antarctica, in Finnish Lapland and Boreal Forest stations (SMEAR I and SMEAR II) as well as in polluted urban sites in Athens, Marseille and New Delhi. Taking advantage of only the measured spectral evolution of aerosol particles as a function of time the formation and growth properties of nucleation mode aerosols were evaluated. The diameter growth-rate and condensation sink were obtained from the measured size distribution dynamics. Using this growth rate and condensation sink, the concentration of condensable vapors and their source rate were estimated. The growth rates and condensation sinks ranged between 0.3-20nmh<sup>-1</sup> and 10<sup>-4</sup>-0.07s<sup>-1</sup>, respectively. The corresponding source rate of condensable vapors varied more than 4 orders of magnitude from 10<sup>3</sup> to over 10<sup>7</sup>cm<sup>-1</sup>s<sup>-1</sup>. The highest condensation sink and source rate values were observed in New Delhi and the smallest values in Antarctica.