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https://hdl.handle.net/10217/170617

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Browsing Research Data by Author "Bian, Qijing"

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    ItemOpen Access
    Data associated with "Constraining aerosol phase function using dual-view geostationary satellites"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2021) Bian, Qijing; Kreidenweis, Sonia; Chiu, J. Christine; Miller, Steven D.; Xu, Xiaoguang; Wang, Jun; Kahn, Ralph A.; Limbacher, James A.; Remer, Lorraine A.; Levy, Robert C.
    Passive satellite observations play an important role in monitoring global aerosol properties and helping quantify aerosol radiative forcing in the climate system. The quality of aerosol retrievals from the satellite platform relies on well-calibrated radiance measurements from multiple spectral bands, and the availability of appropriate particle optical models. Inaccurate scattering phase function assumptions can introduce large retrieval errors. High-spatial resolution, dual-view observations from the Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABI) on board the two most recent Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES), East and West, provide a unique opportunity to better constrain the aerosol phase function. Using dual GOES reflectance measurements for a dust event in the Gulf of Mexico in 2019, we demonstrate how a first-guess phase function can be reconstructed by considering the variations in observed scattering angle throughout the day. Using the reconstructed phase function, aerosol optical depth retrievals from the two satellites are self-consistent and agree well with surface-based optical depth estimates. We evaluate our methodology and reconstructed phase function against independent retrievals made from low-Earth-orbit multi-angle observations for a different dust event in 2020. Our new aerosol optical depth retrievals have a root-mean-square-difference of 0.019– 0.047. Furthermore, the retrievals between the two geostationary satellites for this case agree within about 0.059±0.072, as compared to larger discrepancies between the operational GOES products at times, which do not employ the dual-view technique.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Model code for "Constraining nucleation, condensation, and chemistry in oxidation flow reactors using size-distribution measurements and aerosol microphysical modelling"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018-08) Hodshire, Anna; Bian, Qijing; Jimenez, Jose; Pierce, Jeffrey
    Oxidation flow reactors (OFRs) allow the concentration of a given atmospheric oxidant to be increased beyond ambient levels in order to study secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation and aging over varying periods of equivalent aging by that oxidant. Previous studies have used these reactors to determine the bulk OA mass and chemical evolution. To our knowledge, no OFR study has focused on the interpretation of the evolving aerosol size distributions. In this study, we use size distribution measurements of the OFR and an aerosol microphysics model to learn about size-dependent processes in the OFR. Specifically, we use OFR exposures between 0.09–0.9 equivalent days of OH aging from the 2011 BEACHON-RoMBAS and the GoAmazon2014/5 field campaigns. We use simulations in the TOMAS (TwO-Moment Aerosol Sectional) microphysics box model to constrain the following parameters in the OFR: (1) the rate constant of gas-phase functionalization reactions of organic compounds with OH, (2) the rate constant of gas-phase fragmentation reactions of organic compounds with OH, (3) the reactive uptake coefficient for heterogeneous fragmentation reactions with OH, (4) the nucleation rate constants for three different nucleation schemes, and (5) an effective accommodation coefficient that accounts for possible particle diffusion limitations of particles larger than 60nm in diameter. We find the best model-to-measurement agreement when the accommodation coefficient of the larger particles (Dp>60nm) was 0.1 or lower (with an accommodation coefficient of 1 for smaller particles), which suggests a diffusion limitation in the larger particles. When using these low accommodation-coefficient values, the model agrees with measurements when using a published H2SO4-organics nucleation mechanism and previously published values of rate constants for gas-phase oxidation reactions. Further, gas-phase fragmentation was found to have a significant impact upon the size distribution, and including fragmentation was necessary for accurately simulating the distributions in the OFR. The model was insensitive to the value of the reactive uptake coefficient on these aging timescales. Monoterpenes and isoprene could explain 24–95% of the observed change in total volume of aerosol in the OFR, with ambient semivolatile and intermediate-volatility organic compounds (S/IVOCs) appearing to explain the remainder of the change in total volume. These results provide support to the mass-based findings of previous OFR studies, give insight to important size-distribution dynamics in the OFR, and enable the design of future OFR studies focused on new particle formation and/or microphysical processes.
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    ItemOpen Access
    Sources of PM2.5 carbonaceous aerosol in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2018-02-20) Bian, Qijing; Alharbi, Badr; Shareef, Mohammed M.; Husain, Tahir; Pasha, Mohammad J.; Atwood, Samuel A.; Kreidenweis, Sonia M.
    Knowledge of the sources of carbonaceous aerosol affecting air quality in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is limited, but needed for the development of pollution control strategies. We conducted sampling of PM2.5 from April to September, 2012 at various sites in the city, and used a thermo-optical semi-continuous method to quantify the organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations. The average OC and EC concentrations were 4.7 ± 4.4 and 2.1 ± 2.5 µg m-3, respectively, during this period. Both OC and EC concentrations had strong diurnal variations, with peaks at 6-8 am and 20-22 pm, attributed to the combined effect of increased vehicle emissions during rush hour and the shallow boundary layer in the early morning and at night. This finding suggested a significant influence of local vehicular emissions on OC and EC. The OC/EC ratio in primary emissions was estimated to be 1.01, close to documented values for diesel emissions. Estimated primary (POC) and secondary (SOC) organic carbon concentrations were comparable, with average concentrations of 2.0 ± 2.4 and 2.8 ± 3.4 µg m-3, respectively. We also collected 24 hour samples of PM10 onto quartz microfiber filters and analyzed these for an array of metals by ICP-OES. Total OC was correlated with Ca (R2 of 0.63), suggesting that OC precursors and Ca may have similar sources, and the possibility that they underwent similar atmospheric processing. In addition to a ubiquitous dust source, Ca is emitted during desalting processes in the numerous refineries in the region and from cement kilns, suggesting these sources may also contribute to observed OC concentrations in Riyadh. Concentration weighted trajectory (CWT) analysis showed that high OC and EC concentrations were associated with air masses arriving from the Persian Gulf and the region around Baghdad, locations with high densities of oil fields and refineries as well as a large Saudi Arabian cement plant. We further applied positive matrix factorization to the aligned data set of EC, OC and metal concentrations (Al, Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb and V). Three factors were derived, and were proposed to be associated with oil combustion, industrial emissions (Pb-based), and a combined source from oil fields, cement production, and local vehicular emissions. The dominant OC and EC source was the combined source, contributing 3.9 µg m-3 (80%) to observed OC and 1.9 µg m-3 (92%) to observed EC.
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    ItemOpen Access
    TOMAS-VBS model for "More than emissions and chemistry: fire size, dilution, and background aerosol also greatly influence near-field biomass burning aerosol aging"
    (Colorado State University. Libraries, 2019) Hodshire, Anna; Pierce, Jeffrey; Bian, Qijing
    Biomass burning emits particles (black carbon and primary organic aerosol; POA) and precursor vapors to the atmosphere that chemically and physically age in the atmosphere. This theoretical study explores the relationships between fire size (determining the initial plume width and concentration), dilution rate, and entrainment of background aerosol on particle coagulation, OA evaporation, and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) condensation in smoke plumes. We examine the impacts of these processes on aged smoke OA mass, geometric mean diameter (Dg), peak lognormal modal width (σg), particle extinction (E), and cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) concentrations. In our simulations, aging OA mass is controlled by competition between OA evaporation and SOA condensation. Large, slowly diluting plumes evaporate little in our base set of simulations, which may allow for net increases in mass, E, CCN, and Dg from SOA condensation. Smaller, quickly diluting fire plumes lead to faster evaporation, which favors decreases in mass, E, CCN, and Dg. However, the SOA fraction of the smoke OA increases more rapidly in smaller fires due to faster POA evaporation leading to more SOA precursors. Net mass changes for smaller fires depend on background OA concentrations; increasing background aerosol concentrations decrease evaporation rates. Although coagulation does not change mass, it can decrease the number of particles in large/slowly diluting plumes, increasing Dg and E, and decreasing σg. While our conclusions are limited by being a theoretical study, we hope they help motivate future smoke-plume analyses to consider the effects of fire size, meteorology, and background OA concentrations.