References

ACPD

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions

ACPD

1680-7375

Copernicus GmbH

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acpd-8-4373-2008

Applicability of condensation particle counters to measure atmospheric clusters

Sipilä

¹ ² Lehtipalo

¹ Kulmala

¹ Petäjä

¹ ⁶ Junninen

¹ Aalto

P. P.

¹ Manninen

H. E.

¹ Vartiainen

¹ Riipinen

¹ Kyrö

E.-M.

¹ Curtius

³ ⁷ Kürten

⁴ ⁸ Borrmann

³ ⁴ O'Dowd

C. D.

⁵

Department of Physical Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki Institute of Physics, Helsinki, Finland

Institute for Atmospheric Physics, J. Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Particle Chemistry Department, Mainz, Germany

School of Physics & Centre for Climate and Air Pollution Studies, Environmental Change Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland

now at: Earth and Sun Systems Laboratory, Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, USA

now at: Institute for Atmosphere and Environment, J. W. Goethe-University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

now at: Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

03 03 2008

8 2 4373 4405

This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/4373/2008/acpd-8-4373-2008.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/8/4373/2008/acpd-8-4373-2008.pdf

The ambient and laboratory molecular and ion clusters were investigated. Here we present data on the ambient concentrations of both charged and uncharged molecular clusters as well as the performance of a pulse height condensation particle counter (PH-CPC) and an expansion condensation particle counter (E-CPC). The ambient molecular cluster concentrations were measured using both instruments, and they were deployed in conjunction with ion spectrometers and other aerosol instruments in Hyytiälä, Finland at the SMEAR II station during 1 March to 30 June 2007. The observed cluster concentrations varied and were from ca. 1000 to 100 000 cm<sup>−3</sup>. Both instruments showed similar concentrations. The average size of detected clusters was approximately 1.8 nm. As the atmospheric measurements at sub 2-nm particles and molecular clusters are a challenging task, and we were most likely unable to detect the smallest clusters, the reported concentrations are our best estimates for minimum cluster concentrations in boreal forest environment.

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