Tracing carbonaceous aerosols through trace gas–aerosol relationships in urban pollution plumes

Abstract Understanding the composition of carbonaceous aerosols, black carbon (BC) and organic aerosols (OA), remains a major challenge in atmospheric science. Using data from two aircraft campaigns with identical instrumentation over Europe and East Asia, we analyze statistical relationships between concentrations of five trace gases (CO, NO 2 , HCHO, O 3 , and SO 2 ) with BC and OA in order to estimate carbonaceous aerosol in urban pollution plumes. We show that across both campaigns, CO is the best proxy for BC ( R 2 ≈ 0.6). In plumes, OA shows statistical links with NO 2 , O 3 , and CO, reflecting the combined influence of emissions, and secondary organic aerosol formation. Linear regressions based on trace gases remain limited, especially for OA, whereas the use of nonlinear machine-learning regression improves the quantification of BC and OA ( R 2 ≈ 0.9 for BC, R 2 ≈ 0.7 for OA). However, the number of flights is limited, the results should not be interpreted as applicable to flights in other regions and seasons. Our findings indicate that co-emitted and co-produced trace gases contain information for quantifying carbonaceous aerosol in urban pollution plumes. This potential is more robust for BC, whereas OA remains more complex to estimate because it depends on multiple predictors.

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Publication Details

Journal
npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
Published
2026-07-02
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-026-01456-y
Primary Topic
Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Tracing carbonaceous aerosols through trace gas–aerosol relationships in urban pollution plumes

Benjamin Weyland, Flora Kluge, Inga Labuhn, Basudev Swain et al.
npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
article

Tracing carbonaceous aerosols through trace gas–aerosol relationships in urban pollution plumes

Benjamin Weyland, Flora Kluge, Inga Labuhn, Basudev Swain, Paolo Tuccella, Mihalis Vrekoussis, Michael Lichtenstern, Marco Vountas, Benjamin Gaubert, Yugo Kanaya, Kameswara S. Vinjamuri, Adrien Deroubaix, Mira Pöhlker, Hans Schlager, Maria Dolores Andrés Hernández, John P. Burrows, Ovid Oktavian Krüger, Katharina Kaiser, Guillaume Siour, Johannes Schneider, Bruna Holanda, Klaus Pfeilsticker, Guy P. Brasseur
article en

Abstract

Abstract Understanding the composition of carbonaceous aerosols, black carbon (BC) and organic aerosols (OA), remains a major challenge in atmospheric science. Using data from two aircraft campaigns with identical instrumentation over Europe and East Asia, we analyze statistical relationships between concentrations of five trace gases (CO, NO 2 , HCHO, O 3 , and SO 2 ) with BC and OA in order to estimate carbonaceous aerosol in urban pollution plumes. We show that across both campaigns, CO is the best proxy for BC ( R 2 ≈ 0.6). In plumes, OA shows statistical links with NO 2 , O 3 , and CO, reflecting the combined influence of emissions, and secondary organic aerosol formation. Linear regressions based on trace gases remain limited, especially for OA, whereas the use of nonlinear machine-learning regression improves the quantification of BC and OA ( R 2 ≈ 0.9 for BC, R 2 ≈ 0.7 for OA). However, the number of flights is limited, the results should not be interpreted as applicable to flights in other regions and seasons. Our findings indicate that co-emitted and co-produced trace gases contain information for quantifying carbonaceous aerosol in urban pollution plumes. This potential is more robust for BC, whereas OA remains more complex to estimate because it depends on multiple predictors.

npj Climate and Atmospheric ScienceVol. 9(1)
NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (US), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JP), Cyprus Institute (CY), European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (GB), University of Bremen (DE), Université Paris-Est Créteil (FR), Université Paris Cité (FR), Heidelberg University (DE), University of L'Aquila (IT), Paris-Est Sup (FR), Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e. V. (DLR) (DE), Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (FR), Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (DE), Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (DE), Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques (FR), Laboratoire Techniques, Territoires et Sociétés (FR), Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (DE)
National Science Foundation, Deutsches Klimarechenzentrum, European Commission, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Universität Bremen, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, HORIZON EUROPE Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions
Sustainable cities and communities
Openalex Percentile: Top 8%
Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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