Field evidence of brown carbon absorption enhancement linked to organic nitrogen formation in Indo-Gangetic Plain

Atmospheric brown carbon (BrC), a short-lived climate forcer, absorbs solar radiation and is a substantial contributor to the warming of the Earth's atmosphere. BrC composition, its absorption properties, and their evolution are poorly represented in climate models, especially during atmospheric aqueous events such as fog and clouds. These aqueous events, especially fog, are quite prevalent during wintertime in Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) and involve several stages (e.g., activation, formation, and dissipation, etc.), resulting in a large variation of relative humidity (RH) in the atmosphere. The huge RH variability allowed us to examine the evolution of water-soluble brown carbon (WS-BrC) diurnally and as a function of aerosol liquid water content (ALWC) and RH in this study. We explored links between the evolution of WS-BrC mass absorption efficiency at 365 nm (MAEWS-BrC-365) and chemical characteristics, viz., low-volatility organics and water-soluble organic nitrogen (WSON) to water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) ratio (org-N/C), in the field (at Kanpur in central IGP) for the first time worldwide. We observed that WSON formation governed enhancement in MAEWS-BrC-365 diurnally (except during the afternoon) in the IGP. During the afternoon, the WS-BrC photochemical bleaching dwarfed the absorption enhancement caused by WSON formation. Further, both MAEWS-BrC-365 and org-N/C ratio increased with a decrease in ALWC and RH in this study, signifying that evaporation of fog droplets or bulk aerosol particles accelerated the formation of nitrogen-containing organic chromophores, resulting in the enhancement of WS-BrC absorptivity. The direct radiative forcing of WS-BrC relative to that of elemental carbon (EC) was ∼19 % during wintertime in Kanpur, and ∼ 40 % of this contribution was in the UV-region. These findings highlight the importance of further examining the links between the evolution of BrC absorption behavior and chemical composition in the field and incorporating it in the BrC framework of climate models to constrain the predictions.

Seasonal characteristics of atmospheric water-soluble organic nitrogen in PM2.5 in Seoul, Korea: Source and atmospheric processes of free amino acids and aliphatic amines

The seasonal characteristics of atmospheric water-soluble organic nitrogen (WSON) in particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 μm or smaller (PM_2.5) were analyzed focusing on sources and atmospheric processing. Daily collected samples over 23 h (10:00-9:00) from 7 August 2018 to 31 December 2019 on quartz filters with a high-volume sampler at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in Seoul were considered. The most common species in the Seoul atmosphere included Glycine (5.45 ± 9.81 ng/m³) among free amino acids (FAAs) and trimethylamine (TMA) (5.35 ± 3.80 ng/m³) among aliphatic amines (AAs). The top 10 WSON species (93.6% of all WSON species) were categorized into three groups based on correlation analysis considering meteorological data, (e.g., temperature, rainfall, relative humidity (RH), wind speed) gaseous pollutants (e.g., SO₂, CO, NO₂) and mass concentration of PM₁₀ and PM_2.5. Those three groups are G1 (Glycine, Alanine, and Threonine), G2 (Gln Glutamine, Lys Lysine, and Glutamic acid) and G3 (Trimethylamine (TMA), dimethylamine (DMA), and methylamine (MA)), where G1, G2 and G3 accounted for 31.1%, 8.8% and 51.1%, respectively, of the total species. Among these three groups, G1 and G3 are from combustion sources, and G2 shows secondary features generated by photochemical reactions involving ozone. Although both G1 and G3 exhibited features influenced by combustion sources, the AA species (TMA, DMA, and MA) in G3 demonstrated typical features enhanced under high-humidity conditions, suggesting not only primary sources but also secondary formation at the local scale influence to the AA in G3 group. Based on long-term measurements more than a year, our findings suggest that complex and diverse sources of atmospheric WSON are in Seoul, Korea both from primary and secondary, which may affect its environmental, climate and health.