Exercise

Atmospheric Aerosols and Size Distributions

1 – Regarding the atmospheric aerosols:

a) Discuss the primary and secondary formation process in the atmosphere of the
aerosols;
b) Discuss the sources of the atmospheric aerosols;
c) Discuss the direct and indirect effects of the atmospheric aerosols.

2- Size Distributions
a) Consider the mass and number size distribution in the Table 1. This database was
collected with on Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer and one MOUDI Impactor in
the Atmospheric Sciences Department at University of São Paulo.
b) Plot the normalized distributions as discrete histograms.

c) Determine the geometric mean diameter and geometric standard deviation for mass
and number distribution.
d) Determine the median of the distribution.

Table 1 . Mass and number of aerosol particles in the size ranges listed.
.
Mean of Size interval Mass concentration Number concentration of
size (μm) (μg/m3) particles in interval
interval #
(μm)
18 14,0-22,0 5.21 100
10 8,0-14,0 6.45 230
6 6,0-8,0 11.40 350
5,0 4,0-6,0 3,3 480
3,6 3,4-4,0 5,8 630
3,2 3,0-3,4 8,30 750
2,8 2,2-3,0 7.29 760
2 1,6-2,2 6.20 890
1,5 1,4-1,6 43,0 1000
1,3 1,2-1,4 26,0 1100
1,1 1,0-1,2 11.70 1200
0.9 0,8-1,0 40,3 1480
0.7 0,6-0,8 60,2 1630
0.5 0,4-0,6 84.33 1530
0.3 0,2-0,4 8.18 1380
0.1 0,0-0,2 13.63 200