Estimation of atmospheric particle formation rates through an analytical formula: validation and application in Hyytiälä and Puijo, Finland

Baranizadeh, Elham; Nieminen, Tuomo; Yli-Juuti, Taina; Kulmala, Markku; Petäjä, Tuukka; Leskinen, Ari; Komppula, Mika; Laaksonen, Ari; Lehtinen, Kari E. J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13361-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13361-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Pan-Eurasian Experiment (PEEX)

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-13361-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 21

Research article

|

10 Nov 2017

Research article |

| 10 Nov 2017

Estimation of atmospheric particle formation rates through an analytical formula: validation and application in Hyytiälä and Puijo, Finland

Elham Baranizadeh, Tuomo Nieminen, Taina Yli-Juuti, Markku Kulmala, Tuukka Petäjä, Ari Leskinen, Mika Komppula, Ari Laaksonen, and Kari E. J. Lehtinen

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Final revised paper (published on 10 Nov 2017)
Preprint (discussion started on 09 Jan 2017)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Review Baranizadeh et al. "Estimation of..."', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Jan 2017
- AC2: 'Answers to Referee #2', Tuomo Nieminen, 12 Jul 2017
RC2: 'Baranizadeh et al review', Anonymous Referee #1, 27 Jan 2017
- AC1: 'Answers to Referee #1', Tuomo Nieminen, 12 Jul 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Tuomo Nieminen on behalf of the Authors (12 Jul 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (15 Jul 2017) by Aijun Ding

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (09 Aug 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

New particle formation has been demonstrated to play important roles in air quality and climate change. Measurement of particle size distribution is the basis of most relevant studies. 3 nm was recognized as one critical size in terms of new particle formation. But a considerable amount of measurements on particle size distributions do not extent to 3 nm but instead start at 6 or 7 or 10 nm. Therefore, developing a convincing method to estimate the 3 nm particle formation rates from larger size is crucial to build a worldwide, comparable data set, which will be helpful to understand the mechanism of new particle formation and evaluate their roles in climate. In this study, the authors extrapolated the formation rates at 7 nm (J7) down to 3 nm (J3) at SMEAR IV station based on an approximate solution to the aerosol general dynamic equation. Data from SMEAR II station, which extend down to 3 nm, was used to evaluate the method. The manuscript is overall well written and documented. The topic fits well in the scope of ACP. I recommend this manuscript can be published after some revisions.

One general comment:
Line 201-217, authors mentioned there are one group of NPF events for which the 𝐽3, est and 𝐽3, obs are dramatically different. What's the percentage of this kind of events? Are they included in Figure 1? Are this inhomogenities mainly due to the changes of air masses? If yes, an evaluation on the stability of air masses is recommended during one event. It’s better to establish a standard method to recognize the NPF events as quantifiable or not but not based on visual observation.

Technical comments:
1. Line 230: add the bracket and stop after “Dal Maso et al., 2005”.
2. Please unify the format of units, e.g. 1/s or s-1.
3. It seems to be not necessary to show the statistical results at Puijo both in Figure 5 and Table 1.

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RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (11 Aug 2017)

ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (17 Aug 2017) by Aijun Ding

AR by Tuomo Nieminen on behalf of the Authors (31 Aug 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (09 Sep 2017) by Aijun Ding

AR by Tuomo Nieminen on behalf of the Authors (29 Sep 2017)

Short summary

Extrapolation of the particle formation rates from one measured larger size (e.g., 7 nm) to smaller sizes (e.g., 3 nm) based on simplified growth-scavenging dynamics works fairly well to estimate mean daily formation rates, but it fails to predict the time evolution of the particle population. This points to the challenges in predicting atmospheric nucleation rates for locations where the particle growth and loss rates are size- and time-dependent.