Jakub Bialek

Connecting marine productivity to sea-spray via nanoscale biological processes: Phytoplankton Dance or Death Disco?

Bursting bubbles at the ocean-surface produce airborne salt-water spray-droplets, in turn, forming climate-cooling marine haze and cloud layers. The reflectance and ultimate cooling effect of these layers is determined by the spray’s water-uptake properties that are modified through entrainment of ocean-surface organic matter (OM) into the airborne droplets. We present new results illustrating a clear dependence of OM mass-fraction enrichment in sea spray (OMss) on both phytoplankton-biomass, determined from Chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and Net Primary Productivity (NPP). The correlation coefficient for OMss as a function of Chl-a increased form 0.67 on a daily timescale to 0.85 on a monthly timescale. An even stronger correlation was found as a function of NPP, increasing to 0.93 on a monthly timescale. We suggest the observed dependence is through the demise of the bloom, driven by nanoscale biological processes (such as viral infections), releasing large quantities of transferable OM comprising cell debris, exudates and other colloidal materials. This OM, through aggregation processes, leads to enrichment in sea-spray, thus demonstrating an important coupling between biologically-driven plankton bloom termination, marine productivity and sea-spray modification with potentially significant climate impacts.

On the contribution of organics to the North East Atlantic aerosol number concentration

k-means statistical-cluster analysis of submicron aerosol size distributions is combined with coincident humidity tandem differential mobility analyser data, leading to five unique aerosol categories for hygroscopic growth factors (HGFs): low sea-salt background marine, high sea-salt background marine, coastal nucleation, open ocean nucleation and anthropogenically influenced scenarios. When considering only marine conditions, and generic aerosol species associated with this environment (e.g. non-sea-salt sulfate, sea-salt, partly soluble organic matter and water insoluble organic matter), the two-year annual average contribution to aerosol number concentration from the different generic species was made up as follows: 46% (30‐54%) of partially modified ammonium sulfate particles; 23% (11‐40%) of partially modified sea-salt; and the remaining 31% (25‐35%) contribution attributed to two distinct organic species as evidenced by different, but low, HGFs. The analysis reveals that on annual timescales, 30% of the submicron marine aerosol number concentration is sourced from predominantly organic aerosol while 60% of the anthropogenic aerosol number is predominantly organic. Coastal nucleation events show the highest contribution of the lowest HGF mode (1.19), although this contribution is more likely to be influenced by inorganic iodine oxides. While organic mass internally mixed with inorganic salts will lower the activation potential of these mixed aerosol types, thereby potentially reducing the concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), pure organic water soluble particles are still likely to be activated into cloud droplets, thereby increasing the concentration of CCN. A combination of dynamics and aerosol concentrations will determine which effect will prevail under given conditions.

Collocated observations of cloud condensation nuclei, particle size distributions, and chemical composition

Cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) number concentrations alongside with submicrometer particle number size distributions and particle chemical composition have been measured at atmospheric observatories of the Aerosols, Clouds, and Trace gases Research InfraStructure (ACTRIS) as well as other international sites over multiple years. Here, harmonized data records from 11 observatories are summarized, spanning 98,677 instrument hours for CCN data, 157,880 for particle number size distributions, and 70,817 for chemical composition data. The observatories represent nine different environments, e.g., Arctic, Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean maritime, boreal forest, or high alpine atmospheric conditions. This is a unique collection of aerosol particle properties most relevant for studying aerosol-cloud interactions which constitute the largest uncertainty in anthropogenic radiative forcing of the climate. The dataset is appropriate for comprehensive aerosol characterization (e.g., closure studies of CCN), model-measurement intercomparison and satellite retrieval method evaluation, among others. Data have been acquired and processed following international recommendations for quality assurance and have undergone multiple stages of quality assessment.

Marine organics effect on sea-spray light scattering

Primary-produced sea-spray is typically composed of sea-salt, but in biologically-active regions, the spray can become enriched with organic matter which reduces hygroscopicity of sea-spray, thereby having a potential impact on aerosol scattering. This study shows that scattering enhancement of marine aerosol, as a function of increasing relative humidity, is reduced when enriched with organics whose results are used to develop a new hygroscopicity growth-factor parameterization for sea-spray enriched in organic matter. The parameterization reveals a dual state which flips from high-hygroscopicity and high-scattering enhancement to low-hygroscopicity and low-scattering enhancement as the organic volume fraction increases from below ∼ 0.55 to above ∼ 0.55. In terms of organic enrichment, the effect on Top of Atmosphere (TOA) direct radiative forcing (ΔF) is to reduce the cooling contribution of sea-spray by ∼ 5.5 times compared to pure sea-salt spray. The results presented here highlight a significant coup...

A dual behavior of primary marine organics

High-time resolution measurements of primary marine organic sea-spray physico-chemical properties reveal submicron organic marine aerosol plume concentrations peaking at 3.8 μg m−3, moreover, it shows an apparent dichotomous behavior of marine organics in terms of water uptake: specifically sea-spray aerosol enriched in organic matter possesses a low Hydroscopic Growth Factor (HGF∼1.25) while simultaneously having a cloud condensation nucleus/condensation nuclei (CCN/CN) activation efficiency of between 83% at 0.25% supersaturation and 100% at 0.75%. Simultaneous retrieval of Cloud Droplet Number Concentration (CDNC) during primary organic aerosol plumes reveals CDNC concentrations of 350 cm−3 for organic mass concentrations 3-4 μg m−3. It is demonstrated that the retrieved high CDNCs under clean marine conditions can only be explained by organic sea-spray and corroborates the high CCN activation efficiency associated with primary organics. It is postulated that marine hydrogels are responsible for this d...