New particle formation events observed at King Sejong Station, Antarctic Peninsula – Part 1: Physical characteristics and contribution to cloud condensation nuclei

Kim, Jaeseok; Yoon, Young Jun; Gim, Yeontae; Choi, Jin Hee; Kang, Hyo Jin; Park, Ki-Tae; Park, Jiyeon; Lee, Bang Yong

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-7583-2019

Articles | Volume 19, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-7583-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-7583-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 11

Research article

|

06 Jun 2019

Research article |

| 06 Jun 2019

New particle formation events observed at King Sejong Station, Antarctic Peninsula – Part 1: Physical characteristics and contribution to cloud condensation nuclei

Jaeseok Kim, Young Jun Yoon, Yeontae Gim, Jin Hee Choi, Hyo Jin Kang, Ki-Tae Park, Jiyeon Park, and Bang Yong Lee

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Jun 2019)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 14 Dec 2018)

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

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RC1: 'Reviewer_report_acp-2018-1180', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Dec 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to anonymous referee #1', Young Jun YOON, 10 Apr 2019
RC2: 'Review comment on "New particle formation events observed at King Sejong Station, Antarctic Peninsula – Part 1: Physical characteristics and contribution to cloud condensation nuclei" by Jaeseok Kim et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Jan 2019
- AC2: 'Reply to anonymous referee #2', Young Jun YOON, 10 Apr 2019

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Young Jun Yoon on behalf of the Authors (10 Apr 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (12 Apr 2019) by Veli-Matti Kerminen

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (19 Apr 2019)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Review comment on "New particle formation events observed at King Sejong Station, Antarctic Peninsula – Part 1: Physical characteristics and contribution to cloud condensation nuclei" by Jaeseok Kim et al.

The authors attempted valiantly to answer the points by the reviewers. Although the authors have succeeded in answering some points, our common and major criticism still remains. I (referee #2) did not call for more field measurements but for a better and clearer discussion. In the current revision, this is better and clearer, but some points of the revised manuscript are less clear.

Major comment
1. Impact of human activity in the Antarctic Peninsula in the summer
Generally, local contamination can affect strongly aerosol properties, particular in the Antarctic area as a pristine region. Therefore, we must remove locally contaminated data before analysis and discussion. Actually, authors attempted to do it in accordance with the procedure for data screening stated in the revised manuscript. However, this procedure can filter only the direct-contamination from the station (I mean King Sejong Station, here). Because local anthropogenic impact on BC concentrations depends on distance from the combustion source (Hagler et al., 2008), threshold value of 100 ng m-3 might be high for the contamination from other stations located in the Antarctic Peninsula.

Considering many ship-borne tourism and, any operating stations in the Antarctic Peninsula during summer, these impacts should be considered and discussed. Indeed, several stations are operating around King Sejong Station (King George Island). I understand that the authors removed hardly these impact from the measured data in this study. As shown by Shirsat et al (2009) and Graf et al (2010), however, human activity in the Antarctic Peninsula can have potential for atmospheric sulfur chemistry, particularly during summer. Additionally, BC concentrations at Ferraz Station (near King Sejong Station) were higher than those at other coastal stations (Pereira et al., 2006; Weller et al., 2013). These studies implies impact of human activities in the Antarctic Peninsula, although we must consider contribution of long-range transport from South America and latitudinal BC distribution. Thus, this is likely the current condition around the Antarctic Peninsula (in summer), although authors want to know aerosol properties in pristine conditions.

In the revised manuscript, higher aerosol concentrations, FR, and CS were observed at King Sejong Station. We can consider the following likelihoods for them; (1) distance from open sea surface, (2) oceanic bioactivity, (3) influence by human activity in the Antarctic Peninsula, and (4) long-range transport from South America. Therefore, some explanation and discussion about impact by human activity in the Antarctic Peninsula should be added into the text.

Hagler, G., Bergin, M., Smith, E., Town, M., and Dibb, J.: Local anthropogenic impact on particulate elemental carbon concentrations at Summit, Greenland, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, doi:10.5194/acp-8-2485-2008, 2008.

Pereira, E., Evangelista, H., Pereira, K., Cavalcanti, I., and Setzer, A.: Apportionment of black carbon in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctic Peninsula, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (1984–2012), 111(D3), doi:10.1029/2005JD006086, 2006.

Weller, R., Minikin, A., Petzold, A., Wagenbach, D., and König-Langlo, G.: Characterization of long-term and seasonal variations of black carbon (BC) concentrations at Neumayer, Antarctica, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, doi:10.5194/acp-13-1579-2013, 2013.

2. Comparison between size distribution and CCN
NPF is important aerosol source even in the Antarctic atmosphere. After growth to size of critical diameter, aerosol particles can act as CCN. If CCN concentrations depended on time after NPF as shown in Figure 5, this might relate to growth of nucleated particles. In other words, the normalized CCN variation can be varied in NPF types (Type A - C). In particular, authors can compare among aerosol number concentrations larger than critical diameter (ca. 50 nm), particles growth (change of size distribution after NPF), and CCN concentrations. Because authors had excellent data set of aerosol size distributions and CCN concentrations, comparison between size distribution and CCN can provide useful and valuable knowledge to us.

Minor comments
1. Page 10 line 20: the ultrafine particles of <100 nm in diameter can...

2. Procedures of log-normal fitting (I mean that equation) should be mentioned and/or earlier works should be referred.

3. Specific values of diffusion coefficient (H2SO4) and transitional regime correction factor should be added in the text. These descriptions are helpful for readers.

4. Fig. 4: No data of GR, CS, and Q were mentioned in the text. I recommend that no data are marked by symbols such as asterisks and short explanations are added in the figure caption.

5. Figure 5: Error bars should be shown in both plots.

6. Table 3: I recommend that the parameters, FR, GR, CS, and Q, in Case I are shown in Tab. 3. Because of low data number, min-max of the parameters are useful for us (readers).

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (23 Apr 2019) by Veli-Matti Kerminen

AR by Young Jun Yoon on behalf of the Authors (10 May 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 May 2019) by Veli-Matti Kerminen

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Short summary

This paper focuses on the seasonal variation in parameters related to particle formation (e.g., occurrence, formation rate, growth rate, condensation sink and source rate of condensable vapor) at King Sejong Station in the Antarctic Peninsula from March 2009 to December 2016. The contribution of particle formation to cloud condensation nuclei concentration (CCN) is also investigated. This study is the first to report the characteristics of new particle formation (NPF) in the Antarctic Peninsula.