In situ vertical profiles of aerosol extinction, mass, and composition over the southeast United States during SENEX and SEAC⁴RS: observations of a modest aerosol enhancement aloft

Abstract. Vertical profiles of submicron aerosol from in situ aircraft-based measurements were used to construct aggregate profiles of chemical, microphysical, and optical properties. These vertical profiles were collected over the southeastern United States (SEUS) during the summer of 2013 as part of two separate field studies: the Southeast Nexus (SENEX) study and the Study of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds, and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC⁴RS). Shallow cumulus convection was observed during many profiles. These conditions enhance vertical transport of trace gases and aerosol and create a cloudy transition layer on top of the sub-cloud mixed layer. The trace gas and aerosol concentrations in the transition layer were modeled as a mixture with contributions from the mixed layer below and the free troposphere above. The amount of vertical mixing, or entrainment of air from the free troposphere, was quantified using the observed mixing ratio of carbon monoxide (CO). Although the median aerosol mass, extinction, and volume decreased with altitude in the transition layer, they were ~10 % larger than expected from vertical mixing alone. This enhancement was likely due to secondary aerosol formation in the transition layer. Although the transition layer enhancements of the particulate sulfate and organic aerosol (OA) were both similar in magnitude, only the enhancement of sulfate was statistically significant. The column integrated extinction, or aerosol optical depth (AOD), was calculated for each individual profile, and the transition layer enhancement of extinction typically contributed less than 10 % to the total AOD. Our measurements and analysis were motivated by two recent studies that have hypothesized an enhanced layer of secondary aerosol aloft to explain the summertime enhancement of AOD (2–3 times greater than winter) over the southeastern United States. The first study attributes the layer aloft to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) while the second study speculates that the layer aloft could be SOA or secondary particulate sulfate. In contrast to these hypotheses, the modest enhancement we observed in the transition layer was not dominated by OA and was not a large fraction of the summertime AOD.