Elsevier

Atmospheric Research

Volume 99, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 1-14
Atmospheric Research

Aerosol and bacterial emissions from Baltic Seawater

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2010.08.018Get rights and content

Abstract

Factors influencing the production of primary marine aerosol are of great importance to better understand the marine aerosols' impact on our climate. Bubble-bursting from whitecaps is considered the most effective mechanism for sea spray production, and a way of sea–air transfer for some bacterial species.

Two coastal sites in the Baltic Sea were used to investigate aerosol and bacterial emissions from the bubble-bursting process by letting a jet of water hit a water surface within an experimental tank, mimicking the actions of breaking waves.

The aerosol size distribution spectra from the two sites were similar and conservative in shape where the modes were centered at about 200 nm dry diameter. We found a distinct decrease in bubbled aerosol production with increasing water temperature. A clear diurnal cycle in bubbled aerosol production was observed, anticorrelated with both water temperature and dissolved oxygen, which to our knowledge has never been shown before. A link between decreasing aerosol production in daytime and phytoplankton activity is likely to be an important factor. Colony-forming bacteria were transferred to the atmosphere via the bubble-bursting process, with a linear relationship to their seawater concentration.

Introduction

Studies of primary marine aerosol have not yet satisfactorily described or quantified the effect of these particles on the climate system (IPCC, 2007). Sea salt particles are the single most important factor controlling the scattering of solar radiation near the surface over open ocean (Haywood et al., 1999). Submicron sea salt particles also function as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN); increasing CCN increases the albedo of clouds, an effect also leading to a cooling of the Earths' surface (Seinfeld and Pandis, 2006). In addition, sea salt particles serve as sinks for reactive gases and small particles. Organic aerosol particles, which recently have been shown to contribute to a large fraction of the submicrometer marine aerosol during summer (O'Dowd et al., 2004, Facchini et al., 2008), can both scatter and absorb incoming sunlight depending on their composition, making their contribution to the radiative balance even more demanding to quantify (Ramanathan et al., 2001, Bates et al., 2006). Above all, bacteria in aerosols have potential influence on clouds, precipitation, and climate. Some species have been found to be efficient ice-nucleating agents (e.g., Maki et al., 1974, Schnell, 1977). This capacity to catalyze freezing and the formation of ice crystals in clouds can trigger precipitation (e.g., Christner et al., 2008, Pratt et al., 2009).

The production of primary marine aerosol is mainly through bubble-bursting as a result of waves breaking at the ocean surface. At rupture, the collected material from both bulk water and the surface microlayer is ejected into the air to form primary marine aerosol particles (Blanchard and Syzdek, 1982, Smith et al., 1993, Clarke et al., 2003, Cavalli et al., 2004). The result is a wind-driven source of aerosol particles consisting largely of sea salt and organic compounds (Monahan et al., 1983, O'Dowd et al., 1997, Nilsson et al., 2001, Nilsson et al., 2007). The bubble-bursting process is in general assumed to result in two different kinds of droplets. Film droplets are considered to be fragments of disintegrated film caps of the bursting bubble, and jet droplets that reach the atmosphere from the collapsing bubble cavity after the rupture of the bubble film (Blanchard, 1963).

The transport of bacteria across the air–sea interface is also mainly governed by the same process (Pósfai et al., 2003, Aller et al., 2005). Microorganisms are capable of surviving long transports in the atmosphere, especially in darkness and at high relative humidity (Griffiths et al., 1996). Transport of bacteria in the atmosphere has important implications from an ecological perspective (e.g., for spreading of organisms), as well as for climate (e.g., as cloud condensation nuclei). Furthermore, marine bacteria can be toxic (Cox et al., 2005), and especially during algae blooms, toxic substances could be suspended and inhaled with severe health effects (Osborne et al., 2001, Benson et al., 2005). In summary, research on the ocean–atmosphere transfer of marine bacteria is important both from a climate and a health perspective.

Recent studies on marine aerosols have included both in situ flux measurements (Nilsson et al., 2001, Nilsson et al., 2007, Clarke et al., 2006) and laboratory bubble-bursting experiments using both artificially made seawater (Mårtensson et al., 2003, Russell and Singh, 2006, Sellegri et al., 2006, Tyree et al., 2007) and real seawater (Keene et al., 2007, Tyree et al., 2007, Facchini et al., 2008, Hultin et al., 2010). The current study is unique as it uses coastal Baltic water to investigate both the submicrometer size distribution structure and the bacteria transfer by the bubble-bursting process. The aerosol production was investigated with respect to parameters such as water temperature, dissolved oxygen and the surface waters' natural biological cycle, and to meteorological parameters such as wind speed.

Section snippets

Locations

The seawater was sampled at two sites in the Baltic proper. The first site was approximately 1 km west of the marine research station on the island of Askö, situated in the Trosa archipelago, about 70 km southeast of Stockholm (58°49′ N, 17°37′ E). The sampling at Askö took place during May–June 2005. The second site was a lighthouse station on the small island of Garpen in the southern mouth of Kalmar Strait in southeast Sweden (56°23′ N, 16°06′ E), where sampling was made about 20 m offshore.

Aerosol size distributions

The average aerosol number and volume size distributions from the two sites are shown in Fig. 2. On average, the number size distribution of Askö peaks at dry diameters Dp close to 90 and 200 nm (Dp1: mean = 86.5 nm, standard deviation = 11.3 nm; Dp2: mean = 180.5 nm, standard deviation = 22.5 nm), where the latter peak is more pronounced than the former. The aerosol number size spectra from Garpen show two peaks with approximately the same particle diameters as the distributions from Askö (Dp1: mean = 93.3 

Discussion

Our results reveal small differences in number size distributions between the two coastal Baltic sites, and will here be compared to open ocean conditions. The laboratory-produced primary marine aerosol showed indications of being greatly affected by water temperature. However, the organic-rich chemistry associated with photosynthesis by phytoplankton seems to be of considerable importance for aerosol production, perhaps even outranking the temperature effect, as will be discussed below.

Summary and conclusions

Primary marine aerosol production from water at two coastal sites in the Baltic Sea was investigated in this study. The aerosol produced as a result of breaking waves hitting the sea surface was simulated by letting a jet of water hit a water surface within an experimental tank, a method generating a realistic bubble and thus aerosol spectra (Fuentes et al., 2010, Hultin et al., 2010). Ambient seawater was either sampled twice a day and re-circulated in the experimental tank for the duration of

Acknowledgements

This project is financially supported by Swedish Research Council on Environment Agricultural Science and Spatial Planning (FORMAS), and by the Swedish Research Council (VR). The data used from the MAP 2006 cruise was supported by European Commission (FP6, project number 018332). The authors wish to thank the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI), for providing us with meteorological data. The staff at the Askö Laboratory is kindly thanked for their support, and the

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    Present address: Swedish Institute for the Marine Environment, Guldhedsgatan 5A, P.O. Box 460, SE-405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden.

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