The lifetimes and potential change in planetary albedo owing to the oxidation of thin surfactant organic films extracted from atmospheric aerosol by hydroxyl (OH) radicals at the air–water interface of particles

Shepherd, Rosalie H.; King, Martin D.; Ward, Andrew D.; Stuckey, Edward J.; Welbourn, Rebecca J. L.; Brough, Neil; Milsom, Adam; Pfrang, Christian; Arnold, Thomas

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2569-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2569-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-2569-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 4

Research article

|

28 Feb 2025

Research article |

| 28 Feb 2025

The lifetimes and potential change in planetary albedo owing to the oxidation of thin surfactant organic films extracted from atmospheric aerosol by hydroxyl (OH) radicals at the air–water interface of particles

Rosalie H. Shepherd, Martin D. King, Andrew D. Ward, Edward J. Stuckey, Rebecca J. L. Welbourn, Neil Brough, Adam Milsom, Christian Pfrang, and Thomas Arnold

Data sets

tintin554/multilayerpy: v1.0.2 (v1.0.2) A. Milsom https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7034729

The lifetimes and potential change in planetary albedo owing to the oxidation of organic films extracted from atmospheric aerosol by hydroxyl (OH) radical at the air-water interface of aerosol particles M. King et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11962921

Model code and software

The lifetimes and potential change in planetary albedo owing to the oxidation of organic films extracted from atmospheric aerosol by hydroxyl (OH) radical at the air-water interface of aerosol particles M. King et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11962921

Short summary

Thin film formation at the air–water interface from material extracted from atmospheric aerosol was demonstrated, supporting the core–shell morphology. Film thicknesses were approximately 10 Å and 17 Å for urban and remote extracts, respectively. Exposure to gas-phase OH radicals showed fast reactions and short lifetimes of around 1 h. The effect on the Earth's radiative balance indicated that removing half of the film could significantly increase the top-of-atmosphere albedo for urban films.