Contribution of water soluble organic nitrogen to total nitrogen in marine aerosols over the East China Sea and western North Pacific

Abstract

This paper presents information on concentrations, size distributions, geographical distributions and sources of water soluble organic nitrogen (ON_ws) in aerosols over the East China Sea and western North Pacific to understand its impact on the atmospheric processes and the oceanic ecosystems in the autumn and spring in the East Asian region. Results revealed ON_ws contributions to the total nitrogen in aerosols to be ~24% and ~10% over the East China Sea in the autumn and the spring, respectively. The particulate ON_ws mainly existed in fine sized particles. Gas to particle conversion may be the major formation process for ONws. Occurrence of particulate ON_ws in both fine and coarse modes during the Kosa event suggests gaseous ON adsorption and/or adhesion to the coarse mode mineral. This behavior of ON_ws is unique whereas NH₄⁺ occurred dominantly in fine mode and NO₃^- in coarse mode.