Title: Modelling the influence of dimethyl sulphide on aerosol production in the marine boundary layer

Authors: Allan Gross, Alexander Baklanov

Addresses: Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Meteorological Research Division, Lyngbyvej 100, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. ' Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), Meteorological Research Division, Lyngbyvej 100, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark

Abstract: It has been postulated that dimethyl sulphide (DMS) emissions from the oceans can produce new condensation nuclei and eventually cloud condensation nuclei. Thus, DMS may have a significant influence on the Earth|s radiation budget. A study of this postulate has been conducted for marine boundary layer conditions using a newly developed chemistry–aerosol–cloud (CAC) modelling system. The CAC modelling system is a variable heterogeneous chemistry model including aerosol physics using the modal concept. A series of simulations describing the clean marine atmosphere with variations of DMS emissions are presented. These simulations show that DMS can increase the particle number concentration of non sea-salt sulphate in accumulation mode from 10% to 25% under clean marine atmospheric conditions, and the total production of accumulation mode particles from 5% to 15%. Furthermore, the importance of including a DMS loss to the liquid-phase aerosols is shown. If this link is not included then the number of particles in the accumulation mode can be increased by a factor up to 8.

Keywords: aerosols; atmospheric boundary layer; dimethyl sulphide emissions; marine atmosphere; modelling; radiation; simulation; DMS; surface water; marine conditions.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2004.005492

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2004 Vol.22 No.1/2, pp.51 - 71

Published online: 12 Oct 2004 *

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