H. Hakola

New Particle Formation in Clean Savannah Environment

Southern African savanna background environment lacks previous, continuous long-term combined sub-micrometer aerosol number concentration and gas measurements. We have build a mobile measurement trailer, which contains measurements of aerosol number size distributions 10-840 nm, positive and negative ion size distributions 0.4-40 nm, aerosol mass PM 10 , PM 2.5 , PM 1 , inorganic compound in PM 10 and PM 2.5 , gases like SO 2 , NO, NOx, CO, O 3 and basic meteorology. In addition, we measure periodically VOCs. The trailer is well- protected against thunder storms, electricity breaks and other typical problems. It is connected to internet via GPRS-modem. Preliminary results show that in a clean savanna environment, new particle formation takes place every sunny day, with relatively high nucleation rates and very high growth rates (up to 15 nm/h).