Articles | Volume 25, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-771-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-771-2025
Research article
 | 
21 Jan 2025
Research article |  | 21 Jan 2025

Exploring the processes controlling secondary inorganic aerosol: evaluating the global GEOS-Chem simulation using a suite of aircraft campaigns

Olivia G. Norman, Colette L. Heald, Solomon Bililign, Pedro Campuzano-Jost, Hugh Coe, Marc N. Fiddler, Jaime R. Green, Jose L. Jimenez, Katharina Kaiser, Jin Liao, Ann M. Middlebrook, Benjamin A. Nault, John B. Nowak, Johannes Schneider, and André Welti

Related authors

Simulated reductions in heterogeneous isoprene epoxydiol reactive uptake from aerosol morphology in the contiguous United States using the Community Multiscale Air Quality Model (CMAQv5.3.2)
Sara L. Farrell, Quazi Z. Rasool, Havala O. T. Pye, Yue Zhang, Ying Li, Yuzhi Chen, Chi-Tsan Wang, Haofei Zhang, Ryan Schmedding, Manabu Shiraiwa, Jaime Green, Sri H. Budisulistiorini, Jose L. Jimenez, Weiwei Hu, Jason D. Surratt, and William Vizuete
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 26, 13557–13579, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-13557-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-13557-2026, 2026
Short summary
What controls tropospheric carbon monoxide in the remote Southern Hemisphere?
Clara M. Nussbaumer, Colette L. Heald, Teresa Campos, Eric A. Kort, Paul B. Krummel, Ray L. Langenfelds, Monica Madronich, Kathryn McKain, Gabrielle Pétron, Ann Stavert, and Steven C. Wofsy
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5476,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-5476, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
A Chamber-Based Experimental Framework for Comprehensive Mechanistic Studies of Ageing-Driven Changes in Biomass-Burning Aerosol Properties
Sara Aisyah Syafira, Aristeidis Voliotis, Dawei Hu, Osayomwanbor Oghama, Huihui Wu, Yunqi Shao, Rhianna Evans, Jie Chen, Yu Wang, Peter Gallimore, James Allan, Hugh Coe, and Gordon McFiggans
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4932,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-4932, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Measurement Techniques (AMT).
Short summary
Upward transport and segregation of ice-nucleating particles in deep convective clouds
Jonas Schaefer, Sarah Grawe, Hans-Christian Clemen, Stephan Mertes, Johannes Schneider, Bruno Wetzel, Daniel Sauer, Jennifer Wolf, Laura Tomsche, Johanna Mayer, Roland Schrödner, Silvia Henning, Tina Jurkat-Witschas, Christiane Voigt, Helmut Ziereis, Theresa Harlaß, Mira Pöhlker, and Frank Stratmann
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 26, 12505–12520, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-12505-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-12505-2026, 2026
Short summary
Aircraft observations suggest an important contribution of methanesulfonic and sulfuric acids to tropical Indo-Pacific aerosol
Hannah Klebach, Martin Heinritzi, Katharina Kaiser, Lisa Beck, Samuel Ruhl, Samira Atabakhsh, Nirvan Bhattacharyya, Lucía Caudillo-Plath, Philipp Joppe, Thomas Klimach, Peter Lloyd, Mira Pöhlker, Ulrich Pöschl, Sarah Richter, Douglas M. Russell, Johannes Schneider, Marcel Zauner-Wieczorek, and Joachim Curtius
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 26, 12355–12393, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-12355-2026,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-26-12355-2026, 2026
Short summary

Cited articles

ADRIEX Science Team: Aerosol Direct Radiative Impact Experiment (ADRIEX): In-situ airborne atmospheric measurements and atmospheric model data, Centre for Environmental Data Analysis [data set], https://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/adriex/data/bae-146 (last access: 31 October 2024), 2011. 
Aksoyoglu, S., Ciarelli, G., El-Haddad, I., Baltensperger, U., and Prévôt, A. S. H.: Secondary inorganic aerosols in Europe: sources and the significant influence of biogenic VOC emissions, especially on ammonium nitrate, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 7757–7773, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-7757-2017, 2017. 
Aksoyoglu, S., Jiang, J., Ciarelli, G., Baltensperger, U., and Prévôt, A. S. H.: Role of ammonia in European air quality with changing land and ship emissions between 1990 and 2030, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 15665–15680, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-15665-2020, 2020. 
Alexander, B., Hastings, M. G., Allman, D. J., Dachs, J., Thornton, J. A., and Kunasek, S. A.: Quantifying atmospheric nitrate formation pathways based on a global model of the oxygen isotopic composition (Δ17O) of atmospheric nitrate, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 5043–5056, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-9-5043-2009, 2009. 
Alexander, B., Sherwen, T., Holmes, C. D., Fisher, J. A., Chen, Q., Evans, M. J., and Kasibhatla, P.: Global inorganic nitrate production mechanisms: comparison of a global model with nitrate isotope observations, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 3859–3877, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-3859-2020, 2020. 
Download
Short summary
This study finds that one component of secondary inorganic aerosols, nitrate, is greatly overestimated by a global atmospheric chemistry model compared to observations from 11 flight campaigns. None of the loss and production pathways explored can explain the nitrate bias alone. The model’s inability to capture the variability in the observations remains and requires future investigation to avoid biases in policy-related studies (i.e., air quality, health, climate impacts of these aerosols).
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint