Ice nucleating particle connections to regional Argentinian land surface
emissions and weather during the Cloud, Aerosol, and Complex Terrain
Interactions experiment
Abstract
Here we present a multi-season study of ice nucleating particles (INPs)
active via the immersion freezing mechanism, which took place in north
central Argentina, a worldwide hotspot for mesoscale convective storms.
INPs were measured untreated, after heating to 95 °C, and after hydrogen
peroxide digestion. No seasonal cycle of INP concentrations was
observed. Biological INPs (denatured by heat) dominated the population
active at -5 to -20 °C, while non-heat-labile organic INPs (decomposed
by peroxide) dominated at lower temperatures, from -20 to -28 °C.
Inorganic INPs (remaining after peroxide digestion), were minor
contributors to the overall INP activity. Biological INP concentration
active around -12 °C peaked during rain events and under high relative
humidity, reflecting emission mechanisms independent of the background
aerosol concentration. The ratio of non-heat-labile organic and
inorganic INPs was generally constant, suggesting they originated from
the same source, presumably from regional arable topsoil based on air
mass histories. Single particle mass spectrometry showed that soil
particles aerosolized from a regionally-common agricultural topsoil
contained known mineral INP sources (K-feldspar and illite) as well as a
significant organic component. The INP activity observed in this study
correlates well with agricultural soil INP activities from this and
other regions of the world, suggesting that the observed INP spectra
might be typical of many arable landscapes. These results demonstrate
the strong influence of regional continental landscapes, emitting INPs
of types that are not yet well represented in global models.