Introduction to Climate and Environmental Physics HS 2014 Lecture IV Christoph Raible, Markus Leuenberger, Fortunat Joos and Thomas Stocker

Definition Aerosol is a colloid or mixture of fine solid particles and/or liquid droplets in a carrier gas. The particles/ droplets have diameters of μm to >100 μm.

Annual fluxes of the most important aerosol sources. From Seinfeld and Pandis (2006)2006

Global source distribution Stier et al. (2005)

Movie

Dependence of various scattering processes on the diameter of the particle that leads to scattering and the wavelength of the incident light

«Dimming and Brightening»

Wild et al. (2005)

«Dimming and Brightening» Wild et al. (2005)

«Dimming and Brightening» Wild et al. (2007)

Production of sea salt aerosol by bubble bursting (left) and of mineral dust aerosol by saltation (right).

Oxidation of SO 2 with OH to sulfuric acid

Idealized volume size distribution of an aged particle.

Balance of gravity and Stoke’s force for a sphere falling through a medium

Conceptual view of the aerosol depletion in an air column away from its source by dry deposition wet deposition

Schematic of various processes leading to extinction and scattering of incoming shortwave radiation

Elemental composition of different rocks, soil, shale and continental aerosol (Warneck, 1987)Warneck, 1987

Chemical composition of sea water. From Seinfeld and Pandis (2006).2006