Aerosol particle number size distribution data collected during the Arctic Ocean 2018 marine aerosol reference tank experiments

Jessica A. Mirrielees, Rachel M. Kirpes, Patricia A. Matrai, Kerri A. Pratt

This dataset includes measurements of aerosol particle number size distribution from the marine aerosol reference tank (MART) experiments conducted during the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition to the central Arctic Ocean in August and September 2018. The MART employed a plunging jet mechanism to generate sea spray aerosol particles.

A series of 10 aerosol generation experiments were carried out using locally collected surface water from various locations in the Arctic, including the marginal ice zone, the North Pole, several open lead sites, and a melt pond on an ice floe.

The aerosol size distribution was measured with a scanning mobility particle sizer and an aerosol particle sizer during each MART experiment.

Citation

Jessica A. Mirrielees, Rachel M. Kirpes, Patricia A. Matrai, Kerri A. Pratt (2024) Aerosol particle number size distribution data collected during the Arctic Ocean 2018 marine aerosol reference tank experiments. Dataset version 1. Bolin Centre Database. https://doi.org/10.17043/oden-ao-2018-mart-aerosol-size-1

Data description

The data are provided in one comma-separated values (csv) file (~22 kB).

File structure (columns) and contents:

1. name of experiment (description of water sampling location)
2. date (YYYY-MM-DD)
3. time (when surface water was sampled) in UTC (HH:MM)
4. latitude (water sampling location)
5. longitude (water sampling location)
6. mode diameter of aerosol particle size distribution (nm)
7. total particle concentration from SMPS, averaged over 6 hours (mean) (particles per cubic centimeter)
8. standard deviation of total particle concentration from SMPS (particles per cubic centimeter)
9. columns 9⁠ – ⁠165: number concentration, dN/dlogD per cubic centimeter at bin midpoint diameters (electrical mobility diameter)

The last two rows in the data table represent water from the filtered seawater experiment, which used a combination of water collected on 2018-09-12 at 10:00 and on 2018-09-13 at 10:00. The data values for the filtered seawater experiment represent measurements from the combination of water collected on these two dates.

Comments

Aerosol particle number size distributions were measured with a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS model 3938, TSI Inc., 14.1⁠ – ⁠736.5 nm dm) and an aerosol particle sizer (APS, model 3321, TSI Inc, 0.523⁠ – ⁠19.81 µm da). The size distributions from the SMPS and the APS were merged, with an assumed shape factor of 1 and particle density of 2.0 g/cm³.

The marine aerosol reference tank experiments were carried out during the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition on board the Swedish icebreaker Oden, which was made in collaboration between Sweden and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and organized by the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat.

The ship track with latitude and longitude information can be found in the Navigation, meteorological and surface seawater data from the Arctic Ocean 2018 expedition data set.