Atmospheric New Particle Formation and Growth with Indian Perspective

TSI is excited to announce an upcoming Online Lecture Series on Aerosols, beginning with this webinar on new particle formation. Please note: scheduled for India Standard Time.

Details

• DATE: 2^nd  June 2021
• TIME: 3:00 PM TO 4:00 PM IST
• LOCATION: Online

Description

Join us for an overview of atmospheric new particle formation and growth based on observations of particle size distributions in diverse locations in India. NPF occurs rarely in rural / background mountainous locations whereas it occurs commonly in urban areas in India.

Professor Kanawade will present new measurement-based estimates of the survival probability of newly formed particles to CCN-active sizes, which was not explored in Indian environments previously. Our results indicated that the newly formed particles have great potential for CCN production in diverse environments of India, with higher survival probabilities in urban areas than background mountainous locations. Our results highlight the importance of the efficiency of aerosol nucleation for producing CCN-active sizes, which is a critical basis of aerosol indirect effects.

Abstract

Aerosols are ubiquitous solid or liquid tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere. Despite their small size (a few nanometer to about few tens of micrometers), they have large impacts on weather and climate.

Atmospheric aerosol nucleation (as a result of gas-to-particle conversion) and a variety of anthropogenic activities (vehicular exhaust, industrial processes, etc.) are significant source of aerosol particles of diameter smaller than 100 nm, generally referred to as ultrafine particles (UFPs). UFPs have been the topic of immense attention as they constitute the largest fraction of the total number of aerosol particles, significantly impacting climate by providing a potential source of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN, particles of diameter >50-100 nm).

New particle formation (NPF as a result of gas-to-particle conversion) occurs almost everywhere in the terrestrial troposphere. But, NPF and survival probability (i.e. fraction of new particles that grow through condensation of additional vapors to CCN-active sizes) vary greatly around the world. Several studies indicated that NPF contributes to about of half of the CCN in the present day, with an estimated uncertainty range of 45-85%. Such large uncertainties in the CCN formation together with our limited understanding of growth of newly formed particles to CCN-active sizes, their removal, their importance relative to direct emissions of UFPs, and their role in the radiation budget can hinder accurate estimation of aerosols indirect effects and, thereby future climate predictions at regional and global scales.

In this presentation, I will present overview of atmospheric new particle formation and growth based on observations of particle size distributions in diverse locations in India. NPF occurs rarely in rural / background mountainous locations whereas it occurs commonly in urban areas in India. I will further present new measurement-based estimates of the survival probability of newly formed particles to CCN-active sizes, which was not explored in Indian environments previously. Our results indicated that the newly formed particles have great potential for CCN production in diverse environments of India, with higher survival probabilities in urban areas than background mountainous locations. Our results highlight the importance of the efficiency of aerosol nucleation for producing CCN-active sizes, which is a critical basis of aerosol indirect effects.

Register

We hope you can join us for this 1-hour lecture. Please register at the following link:

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About the Speaker

Prof. Vijay Kanawade has 16 year's experience in the field of atmospheric aerosol studies. He has been working in various fields of atmospherics aerosols. Prof. Vijay got his Ph.D. from University of Leicester, UK, and worked as Postdoctoral Associate at  Kent State University, OH, USA, Senior Project Scientist at  IIT Kanpur, India and Visiting Researcher at  Lund University, Sweden. Now, Prof. Vijay is working as Assistant Professor in the Centre for Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences Building, University of Hyderabad, India.