Revisiting the Key Driving Processes of the Decadal Trend of Aerosol Acidity in the U.S.

ABSTRACT: Acidity is one essential parameter in determining the aqueous phase physical and chemical processes in the atmosphere and strongly influences the climate, ecological, and health effects of aerosols. Traditionally, aerosol acidity is thought to increase with emissions of atmospheric acidic substances (SO₂, NOx, etc.) and decrease with that of alkaline ones (NH₃, dust, etc.). However, decade-long observations in southeastern U.S. seem to disagree with this hypothesis: while the emissions of NH₃ versus SO₂ enhanced by over three times, the predicted aerosol acidity is stable, and the observed particle-phase ammonium-to-sulfate ratio is even decreasing. Here, we investigated into this issue with the recently proposed multiphase buffer theory. We show

SUBMITTER: Zheng G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10125332 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature