Speciation of organic aerosols in the Saharan Air Layer and in the free troposphere westerlies [Discussion paper]

• Main Authors: García Álvarez, María Isabel, Drooge, Barend L. van, Rodríguez González, Sergio, Alastuey, Andrés
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: European Geosciences Union 2017
• Subjects: Organic aerosols; Saharan air layer; Free troposphere; Westerlies; Aerosoles orgánicos; Masa de aire sahariano; Troposfera libre; Vientos del oeste; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11765/6456

We focused this research on the composition of the organic aerosols transported in the two main airflows of the subtropical North Atlantic free troposphere: (i) the Saharan Air Layer – the warm, dry and dusty airstream that expands from North Africa to the Americas at subtropical and tropical latitudes – and (ii) the westerlies – which flows from North America through the North Atlantic at mid and subtropical latitudes. We determined the inorganic compounds (secondary inorganic species and elemental composition), elemental carbon and the organic fraction (bulk organic carbon and organic speciation) present in the aerosol collected at Izaña Observatory, ~ 2400 m a.s.l. in Tenerife Island. This study was performed within the context of the projects AEROATLAN (CGL2015-66299-P; 15 MINECO/FEDER) and TEAPARTICLE (CGL2011-29621), supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of Spain and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).