Fluorescent water-soluble organic aerosols in the High Arctic atmosphere

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Fu, Pingqing, Kawamura, Kimitaka, Chen, Jing, Qin, Mingyue, Ren, Lujie, Sun, Yele, Wang, Zifa, Barrie, Leonard A., Tachibana, Eri, Ding, Aijun, Yamashita, Youhei
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group 2015
• Subjects: Article; Arctic
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4412076/; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25920042; https://doi.org/10.1038/srep09845

Organic aerosols are ubiquitous in the earth’s atmosphere. They have been extensively studied in urban, rural and marine environments. However, little is known about the fluorescence properties of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) or their transport to and distribution in the polar regions. Here, we present evidence that fluorescent WSOC is a substantial component of High Arctic aerosols. The ratios of fluorescence intensity of protein-like peak to humic-like peak generally increased from dark winter to early summer, indicating an enhanced contribution of protein-like organics from the ocean to Arctic aerosols after the polar sunrise. Such a seasonal pattern is in agreement with an increase of stable carbon isotope ratios of total carbon (δ13CTC) from −26.8‰ to −22.5‰. Our results suggest that Arctic aerosols are derived from a combination of the long-range transport of terrestrial organics and local sea-to-air emission of marine organics, with an estimated contribution from the latter of 8.7–77% (mean 45%).