TY  - JOUR
AU  - Kourtchev, Ivan
AU  - Giorio, Chiara
AU  - Manninen, Antti
AU  - Wilson, Eoin
AU  - Mahon, Brendan
AU  - Aalto, Juho
AU  - Kajos, Maija
AU  - Venables, Dean
AU  - Ruuskanen, Taina
AU  - Levula, Janne
AU  - Loponen, Matti
AU  - Connors, Sarah
AU  - Harris, Neil
AU  - Zhao, Defeng
AU  - Kiendler-Scharr, Astrid
AU  - Mentel, Thomas F.
AU  - Rudich, Yinon
AU  - Hallquist, Mattias
AU  - Doussin, Jean-Francois
AU  - Maenhaut, Willy
AU  - Bäck, Jaana
AU  - Petäjä, Tuukka
AU  - Wenger, John
AU  - Kulmala, Markku
AU  - Kalberer, Markus
TI  - Enhanced Volatile Organic Compounds emissions and organic aerosol mass increase the oligomer content of atmospheric aerosols
JO  - Scientific reports
VL  - 6
IS  - 1
SN  - 2045-2322
CY  - London
PB  - Nature Publishing Group
M1  - FZJ-2017-02130
SP  - 35038
PY  - 2016
AB  - Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) accounts for a dominant fraction of the submicron atmospheric particle mass, but knowledge of the formation, composition and climate effects of SOA is incomplete and limits our understanding of overall aerosol effects in the atmosphere. Organic oligomers were discovered as dominant components in SOA over a decade ago in laboratory experiments and have since been proposed to play a dominant role in many aerosol processes. However, it remains unclear whether oligomers are relevant under ambient atmospheric conditions because they are often not clearly observed in field samples. Here we resolve this long-standing discrepancy by showing that elevated SOA mass is one of the key drivers of oligomer formation in the ambient atmosphere and laboratory experiments. We show for the first time that a specific organic compound class in aerosols, oligomers, is strongly correlated with cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activities of SOA particles. These findings might have important implications for future climate scenarios where increased temperatures cause higher biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, which in turn lead to higher SOA mass formation and significant changes in SOA composition. Such processes would need to be considered in climate models for a realistic representation of future aerosol-climate-biosphere feedbacks.
LB  - PUB:(DE-HGF)16
UR  - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000385536300001
C6  - pmid:27733773
DO  - DOI:10.1038/srep35038
UR  - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/828162
ER  -