Measurements of Be and Pb in cloudwaters: Toward a better understanding of aerosol transport and scavenging

[1] This paper presents the first results of Be and Pb specific activities in cloudwater and investigates their respective differences in cloudwater and rainwater. Our data and analysis show that temporal variation of the Be/Pb activity ratio in cloudwater are caused by multiple sources of air masses, with increased Be/Pb activity ratios corresponding to the advent of maritime or high-altitude air masses. The measured specific activities of Be and Pb in cloudwater samples span three orders of magnitude and correlate strongly with the acidity of the samples. From this correlation and the observation that specific activities of Be and Pb are higher in the more acidic cloudwater, we suggest that Be and Pb in aerosol particles can be desorbed by H ions. Citation: Su, C.-C., and C.-A. Huh (2006), Measurements of Be and Pb in cloudwaters: Toward a better understanding of aerosol transport and scavenging, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L04807, doi:10.1029/ 2005GL025042.