In April 2016 Manchester eScholar was replaced by the University of Manchester’s new Research Information Management System, Pure. In the autumn the University’s research outputs will be available to search and browse via a new Research Portal. Until then the University’s full publication record can be accessed via a temporary portal and the old eScholar content is available to search and browse via this archive.

Related resources

Search for item elsewhere

University researcher(s)

Academic department(s)

Aerosol in the tropical tropopause layer

Waddicor, David Alan

[Thesis]. Manchester, UK: The University of Manchester; 2011.

Access to files

FULL-TEXT.PDF (pdf)

Abstract

This thesis details the ACTIVE campaign in the tropics of northern Australia during 2005-2006 (based in Darwin). The focus of the campaign was to find the influence of tropical convection on the aerosol and chemical content of the Tropical Tropopause Layer [TTL] and the cirrus cloud cover in the area, which is important for the global energy budget. This study details the background climatology of the Darwin region with statistical categorisation of the trace gases and particles. The TTL had regions of extremely high aerosol number concentration, much higher than that of the PBL. The 10 to 1000 nm particle concentrations were as high as 25,000 cm-3 and 100 to 1000 nm were as high as 1000 cm-3. High aerosol concentrations were usually found in cloud-free conditions; cloudy regions were typically low in aerosol number. Wind data and trajectories (BADC) were used to find the origin of the high particle concentrations. Aerosols were found to be nucleating in outflow regions of convective anvils. SO2 oxidation to H2SO4 is a widely accepted mechanism for nucleation. A binary mechanism (H2O-H2SO4), with SO2 as the precursor, was found to be inadequate in explaining the nucleation and growth rates -- tested using an aerosol sectional model. However, it was found, via back trajectory analysis, that the climatology of Darwin was influenced by local and long-range sources, including advection from Indonesia and the Tropical Warm Pool. These distant sources could have introduced condensable matter, with aerosol precursor properties (certain organic compounds). The aerosol model found a condensable precursor concentration of at least 300 pptv was necessary to replicate the observations.