BBC

The Barrow and Oliktok Point ARM Mobile Facility sites are critically located to assess Arctic emission source impacts and to determine the regional extent of black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC) on the surface and aloft. Parallel measurements of surface and total column aerosol composition and absorption at two North Slope Alaska (NSA) coastal sites provide regional assessment of aerosol absorption coefficients and sources of BC and BrC within the mixing layer.

This field campaign proposes to augment existing ARM instrumentation at Barrow and Oliktok Point to improve determination of aerosol properties at the surface, including aerosol absorption by BC and BrC and chemical measurement of hygroscopic components (water-soluble organic carbon—WSOC and key inorganic ions).

This surface aerosol characterization enhances the quantification of the vertical distribution of aerosols by increasing the specificity of the aerosol composition within the mixing layer. Offline measurement of hygroscopic aerosol components will include WSOC, sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, chloride, and potassium; this will enable investigations of the relationship between chemical composition and hygroscopicity as measured at the ARM Mobile Facility Aerosol Observing System planned for Oliktok. This 12-month field campaign is poised to exploit the mobile facility deployment at Oliktok and the long-term Barrow site to make quantitative regional assessments of aerosol impacts on radiative forcing in the NSA.

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