Impact of NOx on secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from α-pinene and β-pinene photooxidation: the role of highly oxygenated organic nitrates

Pullinen, Iida; Schmitt, Sebastian; Kang, Sungah; Sarrafzadeh, Mehrnaz; Schlag, Patrick; Andres, Stefanie; Kleist, Einhard; Mentel, Thomas F.; Rohrer, Franz; Springer, Monika; Tillmann, Ralf; Wildt, Jürgen; Wu, Cheng; Zhao, Defeng; Wahner, Andreas; Kiendler-Scharr, Astrid

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10125-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 17

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10125-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-10125-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 17

Research article

|

01 Sep 2020

Research article |

| 01 Sep 2020

Impact of NO_x on secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from α-pinene and β-pinene photooxidation: the role of highly oxygenated organic nitrates

Iida Pullinen, Sebastian Schmitt, Sungah Kang, Mehrnaz Sarrafzadeh, Patrick Schlag, Stefanie Andres, Einhard Kleist, Thomas F. Mentel, Franz Rohrer, Monika Springer, Ralf Tillmann, Jürgen Wildt, Cheng Wu, Defeng Zhao, Andreas Wahner, and Astrid Kiendler-Scharr

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Final revised paper (published on 01 Sep 2020)
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Preprint (discussion started on 16 Jan 2020)
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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: 'Review of Pullinen et al.', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Mar 2020
- AC4: 'Reviewer 1', Thomas Mentel, 15 May 2020
RC2: 'Referee comment on Pullinen et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 10 Mar 2020
- AC5: 'Reviewer 2', Thomas Mentel, 15 May 2020
RC3: 'Review', Anonymous Referee #3, 20 Mar 2020
- AC6: 'Reviewer 3', Thomas Mentel, 15 May 2020

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Thomas Mentel on behalf of the Authors (17 May 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (08 Jun 2020) by Hinrich Grothe

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (24 Jun 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The manuscript is much improved over the previous version, particularly section 4, with no conclusions or findings have been changed. The addition to figures 3 and 4 and Table 1 greatly improve the understanding of the work. The responses to all 3 reviewers were thorough and thoughtful and thus I only have 3 very minor comments relating to newly added material.
Minor comments
Page 18, line 21: can you define “small loads of SOA” with a value? Or do you mean atmospheric concentrations of SOA?
Page 19, line 7: could also consider citing Compernolle et al., ACP 2011 (https://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/9431/2011/), another commonly used vapor pressure estimation model, but not strictly necessary.
Figure 3, caption: too much discussion is occurring here. Please limit to description. I.e.: probably move everything beyond the first two sentences into the discussion section, except this sentence: “Dashed and dotted lines save to guide…”. This will also help unbury this sentence which is currently easy to miss although it’s very important for understanding the figure.
Figure 4, caption: are the lines here also to guide the eye or are they a fit?

The grammar was much improved, although minor issues remain.
Page 1, line 27: “0.5 in average” should be “0.5 on average”
Page 1, line 30: “character the final” should be “character of the final”
Page 7, line 23: should “uncertainty on our results” be “uncertainty to our results”?
Page 7, line 27: there shouldn’t be a comma here: “section S2 shows,”
Page 9, line 21: “of less” should be “of less than”. And the numbers in “m2 m-3” should be superscript
page 10, line 19-20: “particle free” and “particle containing” should be “particle-free” and “particle-containing”
page 11, line 3: shouldn’t be a comma here: “is only valid, if”
page 11, line 5: “likely due to fact” should be “likely due to the fact”
page 12, line 23: “increase of peaks with odd molecular masses odd peaks”, I think the “odd peaks” part shouldn’t be there?
Page 12, line 31: “as function of” should be “as a function of”
Page 15, line 32: “enumerator” should be “numerator”
Page 16, line 25: should “estimate an possible effect” be “estimate the possible effect”
Page 17, line 15: the “mass’ ” of “cmass’ ” should be super-scripted
Page 18, line 4: “with same efficiency” should be “with the same efficiency”
Page 19, line 15: “despite of the” should be “despite the”
Page 20, line 5: “in presence of” should be “in the presence of”
Page 20, line 22: “despite of” should be “despite”
Page 21, line 19: “HOMM-ACC” should be “HOM-ACC”
Table 1, footnote b: “ratio in steady state” should be “ratio at steady state”
Figure 2 caption: use of “µg/m-3” is incorrect: can’t have the divide symbol and the -3. Suggest re-writing as “µg m-3” to be consistent with usage in rest of caption, if using the divide should not have the minus symbol.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (25 Jun 2020) by Hinrich Grothe

AR by Thomas Mentel on behalf of the Authors (04 Jul 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 Jul 2020) by Hinrich Grothe

AR by Thomas Mentel on behalf of the Authors (11 Jul 2020) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

Biogenic and anthropogenic air masses mix in the atmosphere, bringing plant-emitted monoterpenes and traffic-related nitrogen oxides together. There is debate whether the presence of nitrogen oxides reduces or increases secondary aerosol formation. This is important as secondary aerosols have cooling effects in the climate system but also constitute a health risk in populated areas. We show that the presence of NO_x alone should not much affect the mass yields of secondary organic aerosols.