2019/09/19 by Jacob Svensmark, Nir J. Shaviv, Svensmark, Jacob +6
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Energy · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #86-04 #Atmospheric aerosols and clouds #Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics (physics.ao-ph) #Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols #Coagulation and Flocculation Studies #FOS: Physical sciences #J.2.5 #Oil, Gas, and Environmental Issues #acm:86-04 #msc:86-04 #physics.ao-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1909.12784
29 pages, 12 figures
arxiv created 2019/09/19 · openalex publication_date 2019/09/19 · arxiv updated 2019/09/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The presence of small ions influences the growth dynamics of a size distribution of aerosols. Specifically the often neglected mass of small ions influences the aerosol growth rate, which may be important for terrestrial cloud formation. To this end, we develop a numerical model to calculate the growth of a species of aerosols in the presence of charge, which explicitly includes terms for ion-condensation. It is shown that a positive contribution to aerosol growth rate is obtained by increasing the ion-pair concentration through this effect, consistent with recent experimental findings. The ion-condensation effect is then compared to aerosol growth from charged aerosol coagulation, which is seen to be independent of ion-pair concentration. The model source code is made available through a public repository.