Measurement report: New particle formation characteristics at an urban and a mountain station in northern China

Zhou, Ying; Hakala, Simo; Yan, Chao; Gao, Yang; Yao, Xiaohong; Chu, Biwu; Chan, Tommy; Kangasluoma, Juha; Gani, Shahzad; Kontkanen, Jenni; Paasonen, Pauli; Liu, Yongchun; Petäjä, Tuukka; Kulmala, Markku; Dada, Lubna

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17885-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 23

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17885–17906, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17885-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 17885–17906, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17885-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 23

Measurement report 07 Dec 2021

Measurement report | 07 Dec 2021

Measurement report: New particle formation characteristics at an urban and a mountain station in northern China

Ying Zhou et al.

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Final revised paper (published on 07 Dec 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 04 May 2021)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1: 'Comment on acp-2021-266', Anonymous Referee #1, 24 May 2021

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/acp-2021-266/acp-2021-266-RC1-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-266-RC1
RC2: 'Comment on acp-2021-266', Anonymous Referee #2, 12 Jun 2021

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/acp-2021-266/acp-2021-266-RC2-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-266-RC2
AC1: 'Answer to Reviewer 1', Lubna Dada, 24 Aug 2021

We thanks the reviewer for their valuable comments and suggestions. Our point-by-point answers are in the attached supplement file.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-266-AC1
AC2: 'Answers to Reviewer 2', Lubna Dada, 24 Aug 2021

We thank the reviewer for their valuable comments and suggestion. Our answers are in the attached supplement file.

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2021-266-AC2

Peer review completion

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

AR by Lubna Dada on behalf of the Authors (24 Aug 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Sep 2021) by Fangqun Yu

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (15 Sep 2021)

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (27 Sep 2021)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

This work reported simultaneous measurements of new particle formation events during an intensive campaign at an urban and a mountain station in China. It is a complex and extended study that fits well with to the scope of ACP and it is of interest for the international research community. However, there are some issues to be improved or corrected before it is published in ACP.

Major comments
1. The authors include a long paragraph in the introduction to summarize some results on the regional extension of NPF. This manuscript deals with the extension of NPF events but also with two different altitude sites (one mountain site). In my opinion, it is necessary to include a paragraph about the state-of-the-art of NPF events at mountain sites and the vertical distribution of NPF. Sellegri et al (2019) reviewed NPF events at mountain sites and it is not cited along the manuscript. This same manuscript also discusses the topography or preferred altitude of NPF events. In addition, there is some studies that attempt to look on the vertical distribution of NPF (e.g., Komppula et al., 2003; Boulon et al., 2011). Finally, there is also a recent and similar study that looks on the differences of NPF at two sites, also urban and mountain sites, (Casquero-Vera et al., 2020) and the differences or similarities of the results should be discussed with this similar study where the GR, J or CS are also discussed at two different altitude sites.
2. In P19 the authors stated that urban emissions affect the formation rates, but the NPF are of regional extension? Could local events happen without that regional phenomena? Could the emisisons of that huge city be the unique responsible of the regional NPF? In this same section, the authors suggest that “precursors needed for particle formation were much more abundant in the polluted urban environment (Wang et al., 2013), while those needed for growth are rather comparable”. The analysis of J is for 7nm size, that means these particles are not newly formed, these particles come from growth or could be emitted directly by i.e. traffic? At MT, 7 nm particles means that these particles could not be formed there or the vicinity? Please clarify these ideas.
3. Case studies are “special cases” but, in my opinion, they are not analyzed in depth. For example, shrinkage cases are of interest since there is not clear the origin of this phenomenon (e.g., Salma et al., 2016; Alonso-Blanco et al., 2017). In this sense, Section 3.6.3 makes an attempt to discuss the case of stagnant and shrinkage but unfortunately, there is not a real study or discussion of this special case. Please go further on this or remove these sections.
4. Please review the whole text, there is long sentences without any comma and not well connected along the manuscript.

Minor comments
L26 – Change “few” to “low”
L41 – “at urban site” is repeated
L128 – And the altitude of the urban site?
L138 – Cite format
L148-149 – Why do you mention Fig 2 here? Strictly, both instruments cannot correlate if they don’t measure at same time.
L160 – It “is” reasonable
L164 – What calibrations were done?
L181 – Space after dot
L221 – must have been?
L278 – Is it correct that the “dk” is included and the “du” is not? “[dk, du)”
L288 – NPF event “frequencies” is not an adequate title for this section. Maybe something on the “occurrence” but not the frequency. I suggest “Origin of NPF events at both sites”?
L291-293 – Rephrase
L300-303 – Rephrase, use comma.
L304 – “Common” is referred to “coincident” events? If it is, change the terminology.
L615 – Mechanisms are not really investigated

References
Alonso-Blanco, E., Gómez-Moreno, F. J., Núñez, L., Pujadas, M., Cusack, M., and Artíñano, B.: Aerosol particle shrinkage event phenomenology in a South European suburban area during 2009–2015, Atmos. Environ., 160, 154–164, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2017.04.013, 2017.
Boulon, J., Sellegri, K., Hervo, M., Picard, D., Pichon, J.-M., Fréville, P., and Laj, P.: Investigation of nucleation events vertical extent: a long term study at two different altitude sites, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 11, 5625–5639, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-11-5625-2011, 2011.
Casquero-Vera, J. A., Lyamani, H., Dada, L., Hakala, S., Paasonen, P., Román, R., Fraile, R., Petäjä, T., Olmo-Reyes, F. J., and Alados-Arboledas, L.: New particle formation at urban and high-altitude remote sites in the south-eastern Iberian Peninsula, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 14253–14271, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-14253-2020, 2020.
Komppula, M., Lihavainen, H., Hatakka, J., Paatero, J., Aalto, P., Kulmala, M., and Viisanen, Y.: Observations of new particle formation and size distributions at two different heights and surroundings in subarctic area in northern Finland, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 108, 4295, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002jd002939, 2003.
Salma, I., Németh, Z., Weidinger, T., Kovács, B., and Kristóf, G.: Measurement, growth types and shrinkage of newly formed aerosol particles at an urban research platform, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 16, 7837–7851, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-7837-2016, 2016.
Sellegri, K., Rose, C., Marinoni, A., Lupi, A., Wiedensohler, A., Andrade, M., Bonasoni, P., and Laj, P.: New particle formation: A review of ground-based observations at mountain research stations, Atmosphere, 10, 493, https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos10090493, 2019.

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (29 Sep 2021) by Fangqun Yu

AR by Lubna Dada on behalf of the Authors (18 Oct 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (03 Nov 2021) by Fangqun Yu

Short summary

We characterized the connection between new particle formation (NPF) events in terms of frequency, intensity and growth at a near-highway location in central Beijing and at a background mountain site 80 km away. Due to the substantial contribution of NPF to the global aerosol budget, identifying the conditions that promote the occurrence of regional NPF events could help understand their contribution on a large scale and would improve their implementation in global models.