On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic
Several types of filter-based instruments are used to estimate aerosol light absorption coefficients. Two significant results are presented based on Aethalometer measurements at six Arctic stations from 2012 to 2014. First, an alternative method of post-processing the Aethalometer data is presented,...
Published in: | Atmospheric Measurement Techniques |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
2018
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10138/230833 |
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ftunivhelsihelda:oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/230833 |
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HELDA – University of Helsinki Open Repository |
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ftunivhelsihelda |
language |
English |
topic |
AEROSOL LIGHT-ABSORPTION BLACK-CARBON CORRECTION ALGORITHMS ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS SPECTRAL ALBEDO CLIMATE-CHANGE AMPLIFICATION VARIABILITY PARTICLES SNOW 114 Physical sciences |
spellingShingle |
AEROSOL LIGHT-ABSORPTION BLACK-CARBON CORRECTION ALGORITHMS ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS SPECTRAL ALBEDO CLIMATE-CHANGE AMPLIFICATION VARIABILITY PARTICLES SNOW 114 Physical sciences Backman, John Schmeisser, Lauren Virkkula, Aki Ogren, John A. Asmi, Eija Starkweather, Sandra Sharma, Sangeeta Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos Uttal, Taneil Jefferson, Anne Bergin, Michael Makshtas, Alexander Tunved, Peter Fiebig, Markus On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic |
topic_facet |
AEROSOL LIGHT-ABSORPTION BLACK-CARBON CORRECTION ALGORITHMS ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS SPECTRAL ALBEDO CLIMATE-CHANGE AMPLIFICATION VARIABILITY PARTICLES SNOW 114 Physical sciences |
description |
Several types of filter-based instruments are used to estimate aerosol light absorption coefficients. Two significant results are presented based on Aethalometer measurements at six Arctic stations from 2012 to 2014. First, an alternative method of post-processing the Aethalometer data is presented, which reduces measurement noise and lowers the detection limit of the instrument more effectively than box-car averaging. The biggest benefit of this approach can be achieved if instrument drift is minimised. Moreover, by using an attenuation threshold criterion for data post-processing, the relative uncertainty from the electronic noise of the instrument is kept constant. This approach results in a time series with a variable collection time (Delta t) but with a constant relative uncertainty with regard to electronic noise in the instrument. An additional advantage of this method is that the detection limit of the instrument will be lowered at small aerosol concentrations at the expense of temporal resolution, whereas there is little to no loss in temporal resolution at high aerosol concentrations (>2.1-6.7Mm(-1) as measured by the Aethalometers). At high aerosol concentrations, minimising the detection limit of the instrument is less critical. Additionally, utilising co-located filter-based absorption photometers, a correction factor is presented for the Arctic that can be used in Aethalometer corrections available in literature. The correction factor of 3.45 was calculated for low-elevation Arctic stations. This correction factor harmonises Aethalometer attenuation coefficients with light absorption coefficients as measured by the co-located light absorption photometers. Using one correction factor for Arctic Aethalometers has the advantage that measurements between stations become more inter-comparable. Peer reviewed |
author2 |
Department of Physics |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Backman, John Schmeisser, Lauren Virkkula, Aki Ogren, John A. Asmi, Eija Starkweather, Sandra Sharma, Sangeeta Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos Uttal, Taneil Jefferson, Anne Bergin, Michael Makshtas, Alexander Tunved, Peter Fiebig, Markus |
author_facet |
Backman, John Schmeisser, Lauren Virkkula, Aki Ogren, John A. Asmi, Eija Starkweather, Sandra Sharma, Sangeeta Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos Uttal, Taneil Jefferson, Anne Bergin, Michael Makshtas, Alexander Tunved, Peter Fiebig, Markus |
author_sort |
Backman, John |
title |
On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic |
title_short |
On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic |
title_full |
On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic |
title_fullStr |
On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic |
title_sort |
on aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the arctic |
publisher |
COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10138/230833 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
albedo Arctic Arctic black carbon Climate change |
genre_facet |
albedo Arctic Arctic black carbon Climate change |
op_relation |
10.5194/amt-10-5039-2017 This work was supported by the Academy of Finland project Greenhouse gas, aerosol and albedo variations in the changing Arctic (project number 269095), Novel Assessment of Black Carbon in the Eurasian Arctic: From Historical Concentrations and Sources to Future Climate Impacts (NABCEA, project number 296302), and the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence program (project number 272041). John Backman wishes to acknowledge the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation grants 2014044, 201600449, and 201700305 for financial support. We acknowledge Russel Schnell for providing Aethalometer data from Summit. The authors would like to acknowledge the Alert operators for lab and instrument maintenance and CFS Alert for the logistics and operations of the Alert base camp. More generally, the authors would like to acknowledge the personnel and researchers at the respective measurement stations that have contributed to the data. We acknowledge the Aerosol working group of the International Arctic System for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) for coordinating the data and expert contributions to this work. Data used in this article are archived and accessible from the EBAS database operated at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) http://ebas.nilu.no. Data management is provided by the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch World Data Centre for Aerosol. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654109 (ACTRIS). Backman , J , Schmeisser , L , Virkkula , A , Ogren , J A , Asmi , E , Starkweather , S , Sharma , S , Eleftheriadis , K , Uttal , T , Jefferson , A , Bergin , M , Makshtas , A , Tunved , P & Fiebig , M 2017 , ' On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic ' , Atmospheric Measurement Techniques , vol. 10 , no. 12 , pp. 5039-5062 . https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-5039-2017 85039798511 4742ec10-69ea-4017-bbce-3d5013794cf1 http://hdl.handle.net/10138/230833 000418427000001 |
op_rights |
cc_by openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
container_title |
Atmospheric Measurement Techniques |
container_volume |
10 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
5039 |
op_container_end_page |
5062 |
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ftunivhelsihelda:oai:helda.helsinki.fi:10138/230833 2024-01-07T09:38:03+01:00 On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic Backman, John Schmeisser, Lauren Virkkula, Aki Ogren, John A. Asmi, Eija Starkweather, Sandra Sharma, Sangeeta Eleftheriadis, Konstantinos Uttal, Taneil Jefferson, Anne Bergin, Michael Makshtas, Alexander Tunved, Peter Fiebig, Markus Department of Physics 2018-01-09T07:44:03Z 24 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/10138/230833 eng eng COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH 10.5194/amt-10-5039-2017 This work was supported by the Academy of Finland project Greenhouse gas, aerosol and albedo variations in the changing Arctic (project number 269095), Novel Assessment of Black Carbon in the Eurasian Arctic: From Historical Concentrations and Sources to Future Climate Impacts (NABCEA, project number 296302), and the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence program (project number 272041). John Backman wishes to acknowledge the Maj and Tor Nessling Foundation grants 2014044, 201600449, and 201700305 for financial support. We acknowledge Russel Schnell for providing Aethalometer data from Summit. The authors would like to acknowledge the Alert operators for lab and instrument maintenance and CFS Alert for the logistics and operations of the Alert base camp. More generally, the authors would like to acknowledge the personnel and researchers at the respective measurement stations that have contributed to the data. We acknowledge the Aerosol working group of the International Arctic System for Observing the Atmosphere (IASOA) for coordinating the data and expert contributions to this work. Data used in this article are archived and accessible from the EBAS database operated at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU) http://ebas.nilu.no. Data management is provided by the WMO Global Atmosphere Watch World Data Centre for Aerosol. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 654109 (ACTRIS). Backman , J , Schmeisser , L , Virkkula , A , Ogren , J A , Asmi , E , Starkweather , S , Sharma , S , Eleftheriadis , K , Uttal , T , Jefferson , A , Bergin , M , Makshtas , A , Tunved , P & Fiebig , M 2017 , ' On Aethalometer measurement uncertainties and an instrument correction factor for the Arctic ' , Atmospheric Measurement Techniques , vol. 10 , no. 12 , pp. 5039-5062 . https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-10-5039-2017 85039798511 4742ec10-69ea-4017-bbce-3d5013794cf1 http://hdl.handle.net/10138/230833 000418427000001 cc_by openAccess info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess AEROSOL LIGHT-ABSORPTION BLACK-CARBON CORRECTION ALGORITHMS ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOLS SPECTRAL ALBEDO CLIMATE-CHANGE AMPLIFICATION VARIABILITY PARTICLES SNOW 114 Physical sciences Article publishedVersion 2018 ftunivhelsihelda 2023-12-14T00:12:06Z Several types of filter-based instruments are used to estimate aerosol light absorption coefficients. Two significant results are presented based on Aethalometer measurements at six Arctic stations from 2012 to 2014. First, an alternative method of post-processing the Aethalometer data is presented, which reduces measurement noise and lowers the detection limit of the instrument more effectively than box-car averaging. The biggest benefit of this approach can be achieved if instrument drift is minimised. Moreover, by using an attenuation threshold criterion for data post-processing, the relative uncertainty from the electronic noise of the instrument is kept constant. This approach results in a time series with a variable collection time (Delta t) but with a constant relative uncertainty with regard to electronic noise in the instrument. An additional advantage of this method is that the detection limit of the instrument will be lowered at small aerosol concentrations at the expense of temporal resolution, whereas there is little to no loss in temporal resolution at high aerosol concentrations (>2.1-6.7Mm(-1) as measured by the Aethalometers). At high aerosol concentrations, minimising the detection limit of the instrument is less critical. Additionally, utilising co-located filter-based absorption photometers, a correction factor is presented for the Arctic that can be used in Aethalometer corrections available in literature. The correction factor of 3.45 was calculated for low-elevation Arctic stations. This correction factor harmonises Aethalometer attenuation coefficients with light absorption coefficients as measured by the co-located light absorption photometers. Using one correction factor for Arctic Aethalometers has the advantage that measurements between stations become more inter-comparable. Peer reviewed Article in Journal/Newspaper albedo Arctic Arctic black carbon Climate change HELDA – University of Helsinki Open Repository Arctic Atmospheric Measurement Techniques 10 12 5039 5062 |