Evaluation of the absorption Ångström exponents for traffic and wood burning in the Aethalometer-based source apportionment using radiocarbon measurements of ambient aerosol

Zotter, Peter; Herich, Hanna; Gysel, Martin; El-Haddad, Imad; Zhang, Yanlin; Močnik, Griša; Hüglin, Christoph; Baltensperger, Urs; Szidat, Sönke; Prévôt, André S. H.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-4229-2017

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 4229–4249, 2017

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-4229-2017

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

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 4229–4249, 2017

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-4229-2017

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

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

Research article 29 Mar 2017

Research article | 29 Mar 2017

Evaluation of the absorption Ångström exponents for traffic and wood burning in the Aethalometer-based source apportionment using radiocarbon measurements of ambient aerosol

Peter Zotter et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 29 Mar 2017)
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Preprint (discussion started on 15 Aug 2016)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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RC1: 'Recommend accepting manuscript with minor additions and corrections', Anonymous Referee #4, 10 Nov 2016
- AC2: 'Response to Referee 1', Peter Zotter, 30 Jan 2017
RC2: 'very good study', Anonymous Referee #5, 06 Dec 2016
- AC1: 'Response to Referee 2', Peter Zotter, 30 Jan 2017

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Anna Mirena Feist-Polner on behalf of the Authors (31 Jan 2017) Author's response

ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (16 Feb 2017) by Willy Maenhaut

The authors have reasonably addressed the comments of the two anonymous referees and they have modified their manuscript accordingly. However, several alterations are needed for the Main text before the manuscript can be published in ACP.

Page 2, line 1: Replace "in literature" by "in the literature".
Page 2, line 9, and on 15 other occasions within the manuscript: Replace "e.g. " by "e.g., ".
Page 2, line 21, and further within the manuscript: When "biomass burning" is used as an adjective, there should be a hyphen between "biomass" and "burning", thus "biomass-burning".
Page 3, line 33: Replace "2. Materials" by "2 Materials".
Page 5, line 29: There should be a space after each of the three semicolons.
Page 5, line 32: The subscript "wb" should be capitalized.
Page 6, line 28: Replace "on wavelength" by "on the wavelength".
Page 7, line 18: Replace "(2010), Herich" by "(2010); Herich".
Page 8, lines 21, 26, and 33: Is there a particular reason why "bb" is used here as subscript? Would it not be better to replace is by the subscript "WB", which is used elsewhere.
Page 8, line 37, page 9, line 27, and page 9, line 36: Three different notations are used for the EUSAAR2 protocol. Consistency is needed.
Page 9, line 33: Replace "Results of" by "The results of".
Page 9, line 39: Replace "2006, Genberg" by "2006; Genberg".
Page 9, line 39: Replace "and absorption" by "and the absorption".
Page 10, line 2: Replace "2013, Bond" by "2013; Bond".
Page 10, line 6: Replace "measurements, allows" by "measurements allows".
Page 10, line 20: Replace "and analyses" by "and analysis".
Page 10, line 34: Replace "with above" by "with the above".
Page 11, line 7: Replace "are attainable" by "is attainable".
Page 11, line 19: Replace "Aethalometer model" by "the Aethalometer model".
Page 11, lines 27-28: It is unclear what "as obtained in Sect. 3.2.1" is doing here (we are in Section 3.2.1). I recommend removing it.
Page 12, line 22: Replace "i.e. 1.8" by "i.e., 1.8".
Page 12, line 41: Replace "(2010), Herich" by "(2010); Herich".
Page 13, lines 3 and 4: Replace "Table 4" by "Table 3".
Page 13, line 11: Replace "Table 4a" by "Table 3a".
Page 13, line 13: Replace "Table 4b" by "Table 3b".
Page 13, line 17: Replace "due the" by "due to the".
Page 13, line 22: Replace "affects lower" by "affect lower".
Page 14, line 8: Replace "for of EBC" by "for EBC".
Page 14, line 25: Replace "ZUR days)" by "ZUR days".
Page 15, line 7: Replace "are reported" by "is reported".
Page 15, line 9: Replace "remain elusive" by "remains elusive".
Page 15, line 11: Replace "apportion CM" by "apportion the CM".
Page 15, line 26: Replace "4. Conclusions" by "4 Conclusions".
Page 15, line 34: Replace "Source apportionment" by "The source apportionment".
Page 16, line 1: Replace "0.8, and" by "0.8 and".
Page 16, line 2: Replace "Aethalometer (~2) models" by "Aethalometer models (~2)".
Page 16, line 12: Replace "Results indicate" by "The results indicate".
Page 16, line 20: Replace "i.e. average" by "i.e., average".
Page 17, line 4: Replace "T. C., and" by "T. C. and".
Page 18, line 10: Replace "Energy Statistics" by "Eurostat, Energy Statistics".
Page 23, line 3: Replace "L. R. and" by "L. R., and".
Page 25, line 8: Replace "assuming C value" by "assuming a C value".
Page 27, Figure 5 and caption: The 4 panels are not denoted by (a), (b), and so on. Besides, there are errors in the caption when referring to the 4 panels.
Page 29, line 10: There should be a period (.) after "(2014)".
Page 29, line 12: Replace "(2011), EMPA" by "(2011); EMPA".
Page 29, line 16: Replace "in surrounding of station" by "in the surrounding of the station".
Page 29, line 20: Replace "in near" by "in the near".

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AR by Svenja Lange on behalf of the Authors (22 Feb 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Reconsider after minor revisions (Editor review) (24 Feb 2017) by Willy Maenhaut

AR by Svenja Lange on behalf of the Authors (27 Feb 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (27 Feb 2017) by Willy Maenhaut

Short summary

Most studies use a single Ångström exponent for wood burning (αWB) and traffic (αTR) emissions in the Aethalometer model, used for source apportionment of black carbon, derived from previous work. However, accurate determination of the α values is currently lacking. Comparing radiocarbon measurements (¹⁴C) with the Aehtalometer model, good agreement was found, indicating that the Aethalometer model reproduces reasonably well the ¹⁴C results using our best estimate of a single αWB and αTR.