Is chlorophyll-a the best surrogate for organic matter enrichment in submicron primary marine aerosol?

Initial efforts toward developing a combined organic‐inorganic sea spray source function parameterization for large‐scale models made use of chlorophyll‐a (Chl‐a) and wind speed as input parameters to combine oceanic biology and atmospheric dynamics. These studies reported a modest correlation coeff...

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Published in:Journal of geophysical research. Atmospheres 2013-05, Vol.118 (10), p.4964-4973
Main Authors: Rinaldi, Matteo, Fuzzi, Sandro, Decesari, Stefano, Marullo, Salvatore, Santoleri, Rosalia, Provenzale, Antonello, von Hardenberg, Jost, Ceburnis, Darius, Vaishya, Aditya, O'Dowd, Colin D., Facchini, Maria Cristina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerosols
Aquatic plants
Biological
Chlorophyll
Correlation coefficients
Earth, ocean, space
Enrichment
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Geophysics
Marine
marine POA
Mathematical models
Meteorology
ocean color
sea spray modeling
Sprayers
Sprays
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Summary:Initial efforts toward developing a combined organic‐inorganic sea spray source function parameterization for large‐scale models made use of chlorophyll‐a (Chl‐a) and wind speed as input parameters to combine oceanic biology and atmospheric dynamics. These studies reported a modest correlation coefficient (0.55) between chlorophyll‐a and organic matter (OM) enrichment in sea spray, suggesting that chlorophyll‐a is only partially suitable for predicting organic enrichment. A reconstructed chlorophyll‐a field of the North Atlantic Ocean from GlobColour reveals an improved correlation of 0.72 between the fractional mass contribution of organics in sea spray and chlorophyll‐a concentration. A similar analysis, using colored dissolved and detrital organic material absorption and particulate organic carbon concentration, revealed slightly lower correlation coefficients (0.65 and 0.68). These results indicate that to date, chlorophyll‐a is the best biological surrogate for predicting sea spray organic enrichment. In fact, considering the minimal difference between the correlation coefficients obtained with the three ocean color products, there is no reason to substitute chlorophyll‐a, which is the most accurate parameter obtained from ocean color data, with other biological surrogates being generally affected by larger and less known errors. The observed time lag between chlorophyll‐a concentration and organic matter enrichment in aerosol suggests that biological processes in oceanic surface waters and their timescales should be considered when modeling the production of primary marine organic aerosol. Key Points Chlorophyll is the best proxy for predicting marine primary organic aerosol A new relationship describing the organic enrichment of sea spray is presented
ISSN:2169-897X
2169-8996
DOI:10.1002/jgrd.50417