Natural clay minerals are a large component of atmospheric aerosols and contribute to the indirect aerosol effect, which describes the effects of aerosols on cloud properties and formation. Despite the sizeable impact of mineral aerosols on climate, experimental measurements of CCN activation of clay minerals has been limited due to difficulties in aerosol measurements.  Laboratory measurements of water adsorption on the three most common clay minerals in the atmosphere have been conducted and the resulting data have been fit to two multilayer adsorption models; the Frenkel-Halsey-Hill and Fruendlich isotherms.  The results of adsorption isotherm model fits were incorporated into Adsorption Activation Theory (AAT) to predict CCN activities and investigate the importance of water adsorption on the CCN activation of clay minerals under supersaturated water conditions.  Preliminary results and future directions will be presented.

Comparison of two multilayer adsorption isotherms used in adsorption Kohler theory: Predicting the CCN activity of common clay mineral aerosols

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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