Articles | Volume 20, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2017-2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-2017-2020
Research article
 | 
21 Feb 2020
Research article |  | 21 Feb 2020

The characteristics of atmospheric brown carbon in Xi'an, inland China: sources, size distributions and optical properties

Can Wu, Gehui Wang, Jin Li, Jianjun Li, Cong Cao, Shuangshuang Ge, Yuning Xie, Jianmin Chen, Xingru Li, Guoyan Xue, Xinpei Wang, Zhuyu Zhao, and Fang Cao

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Short summary
Brown carbon (BrC), as an important component of aerosol, has attracted wide attention in recent years, yet very limited information on size differences is available. This paper reveals that BrC presented a bimodal pattern and was mainly derived from biomass burning in an interior city of China. Our results are very helpful for readers to comprehensively understand the features of brown carbon in China.
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