Griša Močnik

University of Nova Gorica · Centre for Atmospheric Research

Black carbon (BC) is a major component of sub-micron particulate matter (PM) with significant health and climate impacts. Many cities in emerging countries lack comprehensive knowledge about BC emissions and exposure levels. This study investigates BC concentration levels, identify its emission sources, and characterize the optical properties of BC...

A reliable determination of equivalent black carbon (eBC) mass concentrations derived from filter absorption photometers (FAPs) measurements depends on the appropriate quantification of the mass absorption cross-section (MAC) for converting the absorption coefficient (babs) to eBC. This study investigates the spatial-temporal variability of the MAC...

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of wood for energy production of over 30 %, and this trend is expected to continue due to the current energy crisis and geopolitical instability. At present, residential wood burning (RWB) is one of the most important sources of organic aerosols (OAs) and black carbon (BC), posing a significant risk to...

Light-absorbing aerosols (LAA) impact the atmosphere by heating it. Their effect in the Arctic was investigated during two summer Arctic oceanographic campaigns (2018 and 2019) around the Svalbard Archipelago in order to unravel the differences between the Arctic background and the local anthropic settlements. Therefore, the LAA heating rate (HR) w...

La Paz and El Alto are two fast-growing, high-altitude Bolivian cities forming the second-largest metropolitan area in the country. Located between 3200 and 4050 m a.s.l. (above sea level), these cities are home to a burgeoning population of approximately 1.8 million residents. The air quality in this conurbation is heavily influenced by urbanizati...

Recent years have seen an increase in the use of wood for energy production of over 30%, and this trend is expected to continue due to the current energy crisis and geopolitical instability. At present, residential wood burning (RWB) is one of the most important sources of organic aerosols (OA) and black carbon (BC). While BC is recognized for its...

Effective transmittance is an important parameter of Mach-Zehnder interferometer in the retrieval of aerosol optical properties using the multi-longitudinal-mode high-spectral-resolution lidar, which is a function of the complex degree of coherence. In this paper, we retrieve the parameter of the complex degree of coherence for the multi-longitudin...

La Paz and El Alto are two fast-growing high-altitude Bolivian cities forming the second largest metropolitan area in the country, located between 3200 and 4050 m a.s.l. Together they host a growing population of around 1.8 million people. The air quality in this conurbation is strongly influenced by urbanization. However, there are no comprehensiv...

Aerosol direct radiative forcing is strongly dependent on aerosol distributions and aerosol types. A detailed understanding of such information is still missing at the Alpine region, which currently undergoes amplified climate warming. Our goal was to study the vertical variability of aerosol types within and above the Vipava valley (45.87°N, 13.90...

Fireworks pollute the local atmosphere with various air pollutants, which can pose a health hazard for the local population. Mass and number concentrations of aerosols were measured before, during, and after the 2016/2017 New Year event in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Our findings highlight the negative impact of fireworks on the environment. First, both t...

There exists a lack of aerosol absorption measurement techniques with low uncertainties and without artefacts. We have developed the two-wavelength Photothermal Aerosol Absorption Monitor (PTAAM-2λ), which measures the aerosol absorption coefficient at 532 and 1064 nm. Here we describe its design, calibration and mode of operation and evaluate its...

Organic aerosol (OA) is a key component to total submicron particulate matter (PM1), and comprehensive knowledge of OA sources across Europe is crucial to mitigate PM1 levels. Europe has a well-established air quality research infrastructure from which yearlong datasets using 21 aerosol chemical speciation monitors (ACSMs) and 1 aerosol mass spectr...

Residential wood combustion is a widespread practice in Europe with a serious impact on air quality, especially in mountainous areas. While there is a significant number of studies conducted in deep urbanized valleys and basins, little is known about the air pollution processes in rural shallow hollows, where around 30 % of the people in mountainou...

The Sarajevo Canton Winter Field Campaign 2018 (SAFICA) was a project that took place in winter 2017-2018 with an aim to characterize the chemical composition of aerosol in the Sarajevo Canton, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), which has one of the worst air qualities in Europe. This paper presents the first characterization of the metals in PM10 (part...

We report on an inter-comparison of black-carbon- and aerosol-absorption-measuring instruments with laboratory-generated soot particles coated with controlled amounts of secondary organic matter (SOM). The aerosol generation setup consisted of a miniCAST 5201 Type BC burner for the generation of soot particles and a new automated oxidation flow rea...

Ljudje lahko preživimo tri tedne brez hrane in tri dni brez vode ter le nekaj minut brez zraka. Vendar zrak jemljemo za nekaj samoumevnega. Onesnaženega zraka, ki ga dihamo, večinoma ne vidimo, vendar pa ima številne negativne učinke na naše zdravje in zdravje naših otrok (Fuller, 2019). V Sloveniji zaradi z delci onesnaženega zraka prezgodaj umre...

Organic aerosol (OA) is a key component to total submicron particulate matter (PM1), and comprehensive knowledge of OA sources across Europe is crucial to mitigate PM1 levels. Europe has a well-established air quality research infrastructure from which yearlong datasets using 21 aerosol chemical speciation monitors (ACSMs) and 1 aerosol mass spectr...

Black carbon (BC) aerosol characteristics have been analysed from January 2016 to March 2017 in an urban background area (León, Spain), located in a coal-mining region, where this fuel is commonly used. The monthly and seasonal variations of BC and source contributions were examined. The mean equivalent BC concentration (eBC) during cold and warm m...

This paper complements the existing studies of Bora flow properties in the Vipava valley with the study of Bora turbulence in a lower region of the troposphere. The turbulence characteristics of Bora flow were derived from high resolution Doppler wind lidar measurements during eight Bora wind episodes that occurred in November and December 2019. Ba...

Residential wood combustion is a widespread practice in Europe with a serious impact on air quality, especially in 15 mountainous areas. While there is a significant number of studies conducted in deep urbanized valleys and basins, little is known about the air pollution processes in rural shallow hollows where around 30 % of the people in mountain...

Kraków is routinely affected by very high air pollution levels, especially during the winter months. Although a lot of effort has been made to characterize ambient aerosol, there is a lack of online and long-term measurements of non-refractory aerosol. Our measurements at the AGH University of Science and Technology provide the online long-term che...

Providing reliable observations of aerosol particles' absorption properties at spatial and temporal resolutions suited to climate models is of utter importance to better understand the effects that atmospheric particles have on climate. Nowadays, one of the instruments most widely used in international monitoring networks for in situ surface measur...

The Unmanned Systems Research Laboratory (USRL) of the Cyprus Institute is a new mobile exploratory platform of the EU Research Infrastructure Aerosol, Clouds and Trace Gases Research InfraStructure (ACTRIS). USRL offers exclusive Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-sensor solutions that can be deployed anywhere in Europe and beyond, e.g., during intensi...

Accurate and temporally consistent measurements of light absorbing aerosol (LAA) heating rate (HR) and of its source apportionment (fossil-fuel, FF; biomass-burning, BB) and speciation (black and brown Carbon; BC, BrC) are needed to evaluate LAA short-term climate forcing. For this purpose, wavelength- and time-dependent accurate LAA absorption coe...

National Capital Region (NCR) encompassing New Delhi is one of the most polluted urban metropolitan areas in the world. Real-time chemical characterization of fine particulate matter (PM1 and PM2.5) was carried out using three aerosol mass spectrometers, two aethalometers, and one single particle soot photometer (SP2) at two sites in Delhi (urban)...

Aerosolized black carbon is monitored worldwide to quantify its impact on air quality and climate. Given its importance, measurements of black carbon mass concentrations must be conducted with instruments operating in quality-checked and ensured conditions to generate data which are reliable and comparable temporally and geographically. In this st...

In the frame of the EMEP/ACTRIS/COLOSSAL campaign in Milan during winter 2018, equivalent black carbon measurements using the Aethalometer 31 (AE31), the Aethalometer 33 (AE33), and a Multi-Angle Absorption Photometer (MAAP) were carried out together with levoglucosan analyses on 12 h resolved PM2.5 samples collected in parallel. From AE31 and AE33...

Krakow is routinely affected by very high air pollution levels, especially during the winter months. Although a lot of effort has been done on characterization of ambient aerosols, there is a lack of online and long-term measurements of non-refractory aerosols. Our measurements at AGH University provide online long-term chemical composition of ambi...

Accurate measurements of light absorption by aerosolized particles, especially black carbon (BC), are of utter importance since BC represents the second most important climate-warming agent after carbon dioxide (CO2). Reducing the uncertainties related to the absorption measurement techniques will improve the global estimation of BC concentration a...

We experimentally quantified the impact of cloud fraction and cloud type on the heating rate (HR) of black and brown carbon (HRBC and HRBrC). In particular, we examined in more detail the cloud effect on the HR detected in a previous study (Ferrero et al., 2018). High-time-resolution measurements of the aerosol absorption coefficient at multiple wa...

Many long-term air pollution and climate monitoring stations face the issue of increasing anthropogenic activities in their vicinity. Furthermore, the spatial representativeness of the sites is often not entirely understood especially in mountainous terrain with complex topographic features. This study presents a 5-year comparison of parallel aeros...

Accurate measurements of the horizontal and vertical distribution of atmospheric aerosol particle optical properties are key for a better understanding of their impact on the climate. Here we present the results of a measurement campaign based on instrumented flights over north-eastern Spain. We measured vertical profiles of size-segregated atmosph...

We have developed a novel single-beam photothermal interferometer and present here its application for the measurement of aerosol light absorption. The use of only a single laser beam allows for a compact optical set-up and significantly easier alignment compared to standard dual-beam photothermal interferometers, making it ideal for field measurem...

Air pollution is not an exclusively urban problem as wood burning is a widespread practice in rural areas. As we lack information on the air quality situation in rural mountainous regions, our aim is to examine equivalent black carbon (eBC) pollution in a typical rural karst area in the settlement of Loški Potok (Slovenia). eBC mass concentrations...

We present a new method for the determination of the source-specific black carbon emission rates. The methodology was applied in two different environments: an urban location in Ljubljana and a rural one in the Vipava valley (Slovenia, Europe), which differ in pollution sources and topography. The atmospheric dynamics was quantified using the atmos...

In the frame of the EMEP/ACTRIS/COLOSSAL campaign in Milan during winter 2018, equivalent black carbon measurements using the Aethalometer 31 (AE31), the Aethalometer 33 (AE33), and the Multi-Angle Absorption Photometer (MAAP) were carried out together with levoglucosan analyses on 12-h resolved PM2.5 samples collected in parallel. From AE31 and AE...

Sarajevo Canton Winter Field Campaign 2018: particulate air pollution in a global hotspot

Airborne black carbon particles are monitored in many networks to quantify its impact on air quality and climate. Given its importance, measurements of black carbon mass concentrations must be conducted with instruments operating in a quality checked and assured conditions to generate reliable and comparable data. According to WMO (World Meteorolog...

Accurate measurements of the horizontal and vertical distribution of atmospheric aerosol particle optical properties are key for a better understanding of their impact on the climate. Here we present the results of a measurement campaign based on instrumented flights over NE Spain. We measured vertical profiles of size segregated atmospheric partic...

We present a newly developed total carbon analyzer (TCA08) and a method for online speciation of carbonaceous aerosol with a high time resolution. The total carbon content is determined by flash heating of a sample collected on a quartz-fiber filter with a time base between 20 min and 24 h. The limit of detection is approximately 0.3 µg C, which co...

Atmospheric mineral dust influences Earth's radiative budget, cloud formation, and lifetime; has adverse health effects; and affects air quality through the increase of regulatory PM10 concentrations, making its real-time quantification in the atmosphere of strategic importance. Only few near-real-time techniques can discriminate dust aerosol in PM...

We have developed a novel single-beam photothermal interferometer and present here its application for the measurement of aerosol light absorption. The use of only a single laser beam allows for a compact optical set up and significantly easier alignment compared to standard dual-beam photothermal interferometers, making it ideal for field measurem...

Brown carbon (BrC) is known to absorb light at subvisible wavelengths but its optical properties and sources are still poorly documented, leading to large uncertainties in climate studies. Here, we show its major wintertime contribution to total aerosol absorption at 370 nm (18–42%) at 9 different French sites. Moreover, an excellent correlation wi...

Delhi is one of the most polluted cities worldwide and a comprehensive understanding and deeper insight into the air pollution and its sources is of high importance. We report 5 months of highly time-resolved measurements of non-refractory PM2.5 and black carbon (BC). Additionally, source apportionment based on positive matrix factorization (PMF) o...

Abstract. We experimentally quantified the impact of cloud fraction and cloud type on the heating rates (HRs) of black and brown carbon (HR_BC and HR_BrC).In particular, in this work, we examine in more detail the average cloud effect (Ferrero et al., 2018) using high time-resolution measurements of aerosol absorption at multipl...

Since 2007, a series of ESA supported airborne campaigns have been essential to the development of the Aeolus Doppler Wind Lidar satellite mission, which was successfully launched on 22 September 2018 and is providing a novel wind and aerosol profile data. A core element of the Aeolus Cal/Val activities is DLRs A2D wind lidar on-board the DLR Falco...

In the summer of 2014 in situ and remote sensing instruments were deployed in Athens, in order to study the concentration, physical properties, and chemical composition of aerosols. In this manuscript we aim to combine the measurements of collocated in situ and remote sensing instruments by comparison and complementary use, in order to increase the...

Abstract. Atmospheric mineral dust influences Earth’s radiative budget, cloud formation and lifetime, has adverse health effects, and affects the air quality through the increase of regulatory PM ₁₀ concentrations, making strategic its real-time quantification in the atmosphere. Only few near-real-time techniques can discriminate dust ae...

Nowadays, urban centres in countries of the Western Balkan region (including Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H)) are experiencing some of the poorest European and global air quality due to the extensive use of solid fuels (e.g., wood, coal) and old vehicle fleet. Western Balkan countries lack state-of-the-art atmospheric sciences research despite high le...

This study documents and analyses a 4-year continuous record of aerosol optical properties measured at the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) station of Chacaltaya (CHC; 5240 m a.s.l.), in Bolivia. Records of particle light scattering and particle light absorption coefficients are used to investigate how the high Andean Cordillera is affected by both lo...

The present study investigates and compares the ground and in-flight performance of three miniaturized aerosol absorption sensors integrated on board small-sized Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs). These sensors were evaluated during two contrasted field campaigns performed at an urban site, impacted mainly by local traffic and domestic wood burning so...

Abstract. We present the newly developed Total Carbon Analyzer (TCA08), and a new method for online speciation of carbonaceous aerosol with a high time resolution. The total carbon content is determined by flash heating of a sample collected on a quartz-fiber filter with a time base between 20 min and 24 h. The limit of detection is approximately 0...

Abstract. We present a new method for the determination of the source specific black carbon emission rates. The methodology was applied in two different environments: an urban location in Ljubljana and a rural one in the Vipava valley (Slovenia, Europe), which differ in pollution sources and topography. The atmospheric dynamics was quantified using...

This report contains a guide and a European harmonised protocol prepared within the framework of the Working Group 3 on source apportionment of the Forum for Air Quality Modelling in Europe (FAIRMODE). It has been initiated as a JRC initiative for the harmonisation of source apportionment with receptor models, in collaboration with FAIRMODE as well...

We present the variability of aerosol particle optical properties measured at the global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) station Chacaltaya (5240 m a.s.l.). The in-situ mountain site is ideally located to study regional impacts of the densely populated urban area of La Paz/El Alto, and the intensive activity in the Amazonian basin. Four year measurements al...

The present study investigates for the first time, the ground and flight performances of three miniaturized aerosol absorption sensors integrated on-board of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). These sensors were evaluated during two contrasted field campaigns performed respectively at an urban site (Athens, Greece) impacted mainly by local traffic and...

A closure experiment was conducted over Svalbard by comparing Lidar measurements and optical aerosol properties calculated from aerosol vertical profiles measured using a tethered balloon. Arctic Haze was present together with Icelandic dust. Chemical analysis of filter samples, aerosol size distribution and a full set of meteorological parameters...

Vipava valley in Slovenia is a representative hot-spot for complex mixtures of different aerosol types of both anthropogenic and natural origin. Aerosol loading distributions and optical properties were investigated using a two-wavelength polarization Raman LiDAR, which provided extinction coefficient, backscatter coefficient, depolarization ratio,...

Aerosol vertical profiles are valuable inputs for the evaluation of aerosol transport models, in order to improve the understanding of aerosol pollution ventilation processes which drive the dispersion of pollutants in mountainous regions. With the aim of providing high-accuracy vertical distributions of particle mass concentration for the study of...

This report contains a guide and a European harmonised protocol prepared within the framework of the Working Group 3 on source apportionment of the Forum for Air Quality Modelling in Europe (FAIRMODE). It has been initiated as a JRC initiative for the harmonisation of source apportionment with receptor models, in collaboration with FAIRMODE as well...

We investigate the optical properties of light-absorbing organic carbon (brown carbon) from domestic wood combustion as a function of simulated atmospheric aging. At shorter wavelengths (370–470 nm), light absorption by brown carbon from primary organic aerosol (POA) and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formed during aging was around 10 % and 20 %,...

Atmospheric black carbon (BC) has a strong positive, but still controversial, effect on global warming. In particular, BC absorption enhancement (Eabs) due to internal mixing with other chemical species - so-called lensing effect - is poorly assessed. This bottleneck partly relies on the lack of long-term in situ measurements of both the optical an...

Aerosol black carbon (BC) is the second strongest contributor to global warming, after CO2, and it is linked to many adverse health effects. A sampling campaign of 15 months was carried out in León (Spain) in order to evaluate the scavenging of BC with an ensemble aethalometer-disdrometer. The aethalometer provides the concentration of equivalent b...

We compared two approaches (denoted as Virkkula” and “Drinovec” equations) for the determination of black carbon via attenuation measurements with a transmissometer OT-21 (Magee Scientific) on quartz fiber filters from different station types (urban-traffic, rural-background and remote) within the Austrian air monitoring network. First, we evaluate...

Inhaled aerosolized particulate matter (PM) induces cellular oxidative stress in vivo, leading to adverse health outcomes. The oxidative potential (OP) of PM appears to be a more relevant proxy of the health impact of the aerosol rather than the total mass concentration. However, the relative contributions of the aerosol sources to the OP are still...

We characterized the chemical composition and optical properties of particulate matter (PM) emitted by a marine diesel engine operated on heavy fuel oil (HFO), marine gas oil (MGO), and diesel fuel (DF). For all three fuels, ∼80% of submicron PM was organic (and sulfate, for HFO at higher engine loads). Emission factors varied only slightly with en...

We investigate the optical properties of light-absorbing organic carbon (brown carbon) from domestic wood combustion as a function of simulated atmospheric aging. At shorter wavelengths, light absorption by brown carbon from primary organic aerosol (POA) and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formed during aging was around 10 % and 20 %, respectively,...

The bottom-up traffic emission model EMISENS is used to calculate hourly black carbon (BC) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emission rates on an average workday in Maribor (Slovenia), using emission factors that were previously determined with the on-road chasing measurements in Slovenia. From modeled NOx emission rates and in-situ NOx measurements we emp...

Light Absorbing Aerosols (LAA) absorb sunlight and heat the atmosphere. This work presents a novel methodology to experimentally quantify the heating rate (HR) induced by LAA into an atmospheric layer. Multi-wavelength aerosol absorption measurements were coupled with spectral measurements of the direct, diffuse and surface reflected radiation to o...

Traffic air pollution significantly influences cyclists using cycling routes near main roads. We analyze the dependency of black carbon (BC) concentrations in relation to the proximity to their traffic sources. We performed static and mobile measurements of BC using aethalometers at chosen sites and cycling routes in Celje, Slovenia—static measurem...

A one-year black carbon (BC) experimental study was performed at three different locations (urban traffic, urban background, rural) in Spain with different equivalent BC (eBC) source characteristics by means of multi-wavelength Aethalometers. The Aethalometer model was used for the source apportionment study, based on the difference in absorption s...