Measurement report: Distinct size dependence  and diurnal variation in organic aerosol hygroscopicity,  volatility, and cloud condensation nuclei activity at a rural site in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, China

Cai, Mingfu; Huang, Shan; Liang, Baoling; Sun, Qibin; Liu, Li; Yuan, Bin; Shao, Min; Hu, Weiwei; Chen, Wei; Song, Qicong; Li, Wei; Peng, Yuwen; Wang, Zelong; Chen, Duohong; Tan, Haobo; Xu, Hanbin; Li, Fei; Deng, Xuejiao; Deng, Tao; Sun, Jiaren; Zhao, Jun

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8117-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8117-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-8117-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 12

Measurement report

|

22 Jun 2022

Measurement report |

| 22 Jun 2022

Measurement report: Distinct size dependence and diurnal variation in organic aerosol hygroscopicity, volatility, and cloud condensation nuclei activity at a rural site in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, China

Mingfu Cai, Shan Huang, Baoling Liang, Qibin Sun, Li Liu, Bin Yuan, Min Shao, Weiwei Hu, Wei Chen, Qicong Song, Wei Li, Yuwen Peng, Zelong Wang, Duohong Chen, Haobo Tan, Hanbin Xu, Fei Li, Xuejiao Deng, Tao Deng, Jiaren Sun, and Jun Zhao

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Final revised paper (published on 22 Jun 2022)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 21 Jan 2022)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

RC1:
'Comment on acp-2022-23', Anonymous Referee #1, 02 Mar 2022

Review of “Measurement Report: Distinct size dependence and diurnal variation of OA hygroscopicity, volatility, and CCN activity at a rural site in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region, China” by Cai et al.

Cai et al. compile a report of findings of a comprehensive study of CCN activity for a measurement campaign in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) utilizing a complete suite of instruments to measure and understand the hygroscopicity and volatility from several differing methodologies. The work is of high quality and is complete and representative. I recommend it for publication with minor changes/corrections as listed below:

Line 82: “and plant” seems that some words are missing here, the intent of the sentence is unclear with the addition of plant.

Lines 87-90: Here in the summary of several previous works it isn’t mentioned where or under what conditions these varying hygroscopicities were reported.

Line 174: I think that this is the line where PNSD needs to be defined, it is not defined anywhere in the paper.

Line 226: Why not report R to one more digit at least? (8.314)

Line 228: meters not meter.

Line 249: Here you state the assumption relative to internally mixed particles, but the GF HTDMA data indicates that at the very least some of the mixture was externally mixed. What effect if any does this have on the analysis?

Line 368: Hong Kong (two words).

Line 376: Replace “It” with “This”.

Line 411: replace organics with organic.

Line 418: This paragraph appears to make an argument that CCN measurements report kappa values that would be considered in-correct. If this is used to measure actual CCN activity and predict them, wouldn’t a CCN instrument be the more appropriate measurement instead of an HTDMA, where the hygroscopicity of the HTDMA instrument would be the biased one? Understanding that the kappa values are different, which is more appropriate for estimating modelled Nccn? (this is again brought up on line 560).

Line 602/603: This sentence needs to be reworked, it is unclear which statements and values correspond.

Figure 4: In panel A consider different colors (red/green color-blind issues).

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-23-RC1
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Mingfu Cai, 19 Apr 2022
  
  See the attachment for details of our response to the referee’s comments.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-23-AC1
RC2:
'Comment on acp-2022-23', Anonymous Referee #2, 14 Mar 2022

The comment was uploaded in the form of a supplement: https://acp.copernicus.org/preprints/acp-2022-23/acp-2022-23-RC2-supplement.pdf

Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-23-RC2
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Mingfu Cai, 19 Apr 2022
  
  See the attachment for details of our response to the referee’s comments.
  
  Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-23-AC2

Peer review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision | EF: Editorial file upload

AR by Mingfu Cai on behalf of the Authors (19 Apr 2022) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (30 Apr 2022) by Anne Perring

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (15 May 2022)

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (28 May 2022) by Anne Perring

AR by Mingfu Cai on behalf of the Authors (04 Jun 2022) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

This study investigated the size dependence and diurnal variation in organic aerosol hygroscopicity, volatility, and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activity. We found that the physical properties of OA could vary in a large range at different particle sizes and affected the number concentration of CCN (N_CCN) at all supersaturations. Our results highlight the importance of evaluating the atmospheric evolution processes of OA at different size ranges and their impact on climate effects.