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Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties

Atmospheric aerosols have been shown to be an important input of organic carbon and nutrients to alpine watersheds and influence biogeochemical processes in these remote settings. For many remote, high elevation watersheds, direct evidence of the sources of water soluble organic aerosols and their c...

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Autores principales: Xie, Mingjie, Mladenov, Natalie, Williams, Mark W., Neff, Jason C., Wasswa, Joseph, Hannigan, Michael P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5171866/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27991554
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep39339
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author Xie, Mingjie
Mladenov, Natalie
Williams, Mark W.
Neff, Jason C.
Wasswa, Joseph
Hannigan, Michael P.
author_facet Xie, Mingjie
Mladenov, Natalie
Williams, Mark W.
Neff, Jason C.
Wasswa, Joseph
Hannigan, Michael P.
author_sort Xie, Mingjie
collection PubMed
description Atmospheric aerosols have been shown to be an important input of organic carbon and nutrients to alpine watersheds and influence biogeochemical processes in these remote settings. For many remote, high elevation watersheds, direct evidence of the sources of water soluble organic aerosols and their chemical and optical characteristics is lacking. Here, we show that the concentration of water soluble organic carbon (WSOC) in the total suspended particulate (TSP) load at a high elevation site in the Colorado Rocky Mountains was strongly correlated with UV absorbance at 254 nm (Abs254, r = 0.88 p < 0.01) and organic carbon (OC, r = 0.95 p < 0.01), accounting for >90% of OC on average. According to source apportionment analysis, biomass burning had the highest contribution (50.3%) to average WSOC concentration; SOA formation and motor vehicle emissions dominated the contribution to WSOC in the summer. The source apportionment and backward trajectory analysis results supported the notion that both wildfire and Colorado Front Range pollution sources contribute to the summertime OC peaks observed in wet deposition at high elevation sites in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. These findings have important implications for water quality in remote, high-elevation, mountain catchments considered to be our pristine reference sites.
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spelling pubmed-51718662016-12-28 Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties Xie, Mingjie Mladenov, Natalie Williams, Mark W. Neff, Jason C. Wasswa, Joseph Hannigan, Michael P. Sci Rep Article Atmospheric aerosols have been shown to be an important input of organic carbon and nutrients to alpine watersheds and influence biogeochemical processes in these remote settings. For many remote, high elevation watersheds, direct evidence of the sources of water soluble organic aerosols and their chemical and optical characteristics is lacking. Here, we show that the concentration of water soluble organic carbon (WSOC) in the total suspended particulate (TSP) load at a high elevation site in the Colorado Rocky Mountains was strongly correlated with UV absorbance at 254 nm (Abs254, r = 0.88 p < 0.01) and organic carbon (OC, r = 0.95 p < 0.01), accounting for >90% of OC on average. According to source apportionment analysis, biomass burning had the highest contribution (50.3%) to average WSOC concentration; SOA formation and motor vehicle emissions dominated the contribution to WSOC in the summer. The source apportionment and backward trajectory analysis results supported the notion that both wildfire and Colorado Front Range pollution sources contribute to the summertime OC peaks observed in wet deposition at high elevation sites in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. These findings have important implications for water quality in remote, high-elevation, mountain catchments considered to be our pristine reference sites. Nature Publishing Group 2016-12-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5171866/ /pubmed/27991554 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep39339 Text en Copyright © 2016, The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Xie, Mingjie
Mladenov, Natalie
Williams, Mark W.
Neff, Jason C.
Wasswa, Joseph
Hannigan, Michael P.
Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties
title Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties
title_full Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties
title_fullStr Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties
title_full_unstemmed Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties
title_short Water soluble organic aerosols in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, USA: composition, sources and optical properties
title_sort water soluble organic aerosols in the colorado rocky mountains, usa: composition, sources and optical properties
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5171866/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27991554
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep39339
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