Submicron Organic Aerosol Types in the Summertime Arctic: Mixing State, Geographic Distribution, and Drivers

Abstract

During the 2017 summertime Arctic cruise observation campaigns, we measured over 290,000 individual submicron particles and clustered them into two inorganic classes (dominated by sea salt, accounting for 38.6% by number fraction) and five organic classes (dominated by natural and anthropogenic organics, 61.4%), presenting a distinct difference in geographic distribution. In the high Arctic and marginal ice zone (81.1–84.6°N) compared with the low Arctic (Chukchi Sea, Svalbard, and Iceland, <80°N), ocean-derived organic aerosols were more prevalent (73.6% vs. 37.1%). Specifically, we found sharp contrasts in the geographic distributions of OC-Ca (organics internally mixed with calcium, 29.0% vs. 9.4%) and OC-S (organics internally mixed with sulfate, 3.2% vs. 21.4%). Utilizing an explainable machine learning technique, we inferred that OC-Ca was driven by wind-blown sea ice and/or sea ice floes and/or bubble bursting within sea ice leads under low wind speed conditions in the high Arctic, while OC-S tended to associate with elemental carbon, sulfate, and higher temperatures, potentially originating from combustion emissions at low latitude regions.