Modal Bin Hybrid Model: A surface area consistent, triple-moment sectional method for use in process-oriented modeling of atmospheric aerosols

Abstract

A triple-moment sectional (TMS) aerosol dynamics model, Modal Bin Hybrid Model (MBHM), has been developed. In addition to number and mass (volume), surface area is predicted (and preserved), which is important for aerosol processes and properties such as gas-to-particle mass transfer, heterogeneous reaction, and light extinction cross section. The performance of MBHM was evaluated against double-moment sectional (DMS) models with coarse (BIN4) to very fine (BIN256) size resolutions for simulating evolution of particles under simultaneously occurring nucleation, condensation, and coagulation processes (BINx resolution uses x sections to cover the 1 nm to 1 μm size range). Because MBHM gives a physically consistent form of the intrasectional distributions, errors and biases of MBHM at BIN4-8 resolution were almost equivalent to those of DMS at BIN16-32 resolution for various important variables such as the moments Mk (k: 0, 2, 3), dMk/dt, and the number and volume of particles larger than a certain diameter. Another important feature of MBHM is that only a single bin is adequate to simulate full aerosol dynamics for particles whose size distribution can be approximated by a single lognormal mode. This flexibility is useful for process-oriented (multicategory and/or mixing state) modeling: Primary aerosols whose size parameters would not differ substantially in time and space can be expressed by a single or a small number of modes, whereas secondary aerosols whose size changes drastically from 1 to several hundred nanometers can be expressed by a number of modes. Added dimensions can be applied to MBHM to represent mixing state or photochemical age for aerosol mixing state studies. Key Points Modal Bin Hybrid Model is a three moment sectional aerosol dynamics modelMBHM is as accurate as a two moment bin model with four times as many binsOne bin is adequate to simulate aerosol dynamics for a single lognormal mode ©2013. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.