Wintertime subarctic new particle formation from Kola Peninsula sulfur emissions

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Authors: Sipilä, Mikko, Sarnela, Nina, Neitola, Kimmo, Laitinen, Totti, Kemppainen, Deniz, Beck, Lisa, Duplissy, Ella-Maria, Kuittinen, Salla, Lehmusjärvi, Tuuli, Lampilahti, Janne, Kerminen, Veli-Matti, Lehtipalo, Katrianne, Aalto, Pasi P., Keronen, Petri, Siivola, Erkki, Rantala, Pekka A., Worsnop, Douglas R., Kulmala, Markku, Jokinen, Tuija, Petäjä, Tuukka
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Arctic; Kola Peninsula; Norilsk; kola peninsula; norilsk; North-West Russia; Subarctic; Lapland; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-17559-2021; https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/17559/2021/

The metallurgical industry in the Kola Peninsula, north-west Russia, form, after Norilsk, Siberia, the second largest source of air pollution in the Arctic and subarctic domain. Sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) emissions from the ore smelters are transported to wide areas, including Finnish Lapland. We performed investigations on concentrations of SO 2 , aerosol precursor vapours, aerosol and ion cluster size distributions together with chemical composition measurements of freshly formed clusters at the SMEAR I station in Finnish Lapland relatively close ( ∼ 300 km) to the Kola Peninsula industrial sites during the winter 2019–2020. We show that highly concentrated SO 2 from smelter emissions is converted to sulfuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ) in sufficient concentrations to drive new particle formation hundreds of kilometres downwind from the emission sources, even at very low solar radiation intensities. Observed new particle formation is primarily initiated by H 2 SO 4 –ammonia (negative-)ion-induced nucleation. Particle growth to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) sizes was concluded to result from sulfuric acid condensation. However, air mass advection had a large role in modifying aerosol size distributions, and other growth mechanisms and condensation of other compounds cannot be fully excluded. Our results demonstrate the dominance of SO 2 emissions in controlling wintertime aerosol and CCN concentrations in the subarctic region with a heavily polluting industry.