References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

1680-7324

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-9-7435-2009

Sulfuric acid and OH concentrations in a boreal forest site

Petäjä

¹ ² Mauldin, III

R. L.

² Kosciuch

² McGrath

² ³ Nieminen

¹ Paasonen

¹ Boy

¹ Adamov

⁴ Kotiaho

⁴ ⁵ Kulmala

Division of Atmospheric Sciences and Geophysics, Department of Physics, P.O. Box 64, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Atmospheric Chemistry Division, Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, P.O. Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307-5000, USA

Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0311, USA

Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry Department of Chemistry, A.I. Virtasenaukio 1, P.O. Box 55, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

Faculty of Pharmacy, Division of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, P.O. Box 56, Viikinkaari 5E, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland

07 10 2009

9 19 7435 7448

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/9/7435/2009/acp-9-7435-2009.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/7435/2009/acp-9-7435-2009.pdf

As demonstrated in a number of investigations, gaseous sulfuric acid plays a central role in atmospheric aerosol formation. Using chemical ionization mass spectrometer the gas-phase sulfuric acid and OH concentration were measured in Hyytiälä, SMEAR II station, Southern Finland during 24 March to 28 June 2007. Clear diurnal cycles were observed as well as differences between new particle formation event days and non-event days. Typically, the daily maximum concentrations of gas phase sulfuric acid varied from 3×105 to 2×106 molec cm−3 between non-event and event days. Noon-time OH concentrations varied from 3-6×105 molec cm−3 and not a clear difference between event and non-events was detected. The measured time series were also used as a foundation to develop reasonable proxies for sulfuric acid concentration. The proxies utilized source and sink terms, and the simplest proxy is radiation times sulfur dioxide divided by condensation sink. Since it is still challenging to measure sulfuric acid in ambient concentrations, and due to its significant role in atmospheric particle formation, reasonable proxies are needed. We use all together three different proxies and one chemical box model and compared their results to the measured data. The proxies for the sulfuric acid concentration worked reasonably well, and will be used to describe sulfuric acid concentrations in SMEAR II station, when no measured sulfuric acid data is available. With caution the proxies could be applied to other environments as well.

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