Simulations of aerosol pH in China using WRF-Chem (v4.0): sensitivities of aerosol pH and its temporal variations during haze episodes

Aerosol pH is a fundamental property of aerosols in terms of atmospheric chemistry and its impact on air quality, climate, and health. Precise estimation of aerosol pH in chemical transport models (CTMs) is critical for aerosol modeling and thus influences policy development that partially relies on results from model simulations. We report the Weather Research and Forecasting Model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) simulated PM2.5 pH over China during a period with heavy haze episodes in Beijing, and explore the sensitivity of the modeled aerosol pH to factors including emissions of nonvolatile cations (NVCs) and NH3, aerosol phase state assumption, and heterogeneous production of sulfate. We find that default WRF-Chem could predict spatial patterns of PM2.5 pH over China similar to other CTMs, but with generally lower pH values, largely due to the underestimation of alkaline species (NVCs and NH3) and the difference in thermodynamic treatments between different models. Increasing NH3 emissions in the model would improve the modeled pH in comparison with offline thermodynamic model calculations of pH constrained by observations. In addition, we find that the aerosol phase state assumption and heterogeneous sulfate production are important in aerosol pH predictions for regions with low relative humidity (RH) and high anthropogenic SO2 emissions, respectively. These factors should be better constrained in model simulations of aerosol pH in the future. Analysis of the modeled temporal trend of PM2.5 pH in Beijing over a haze episode reveals a clear decrease in pH from 5.2 +/- 0.9 in a clean period to 3.6 +/- 0.5 in a heavily polluted period. The increased acidity under more polluted conditions is largely due to the formation and accumulation of secondary species including sulfuric acid and nitric acid, even though being modified by alkaline species (NVCs, NH3). Our result suggests that NO2 oxidation is unlikely to be important for heterogeneous sulfate production during the Beijing haze as the effective pH for NO2 oxidation of S(IV) is at a higher pH of similar to 6.

Automated summary

Aerosol pH is a crucial property in atmospheric chemistry and has significant impacts on air quality, climate, and health. This study utilized the WRF-Chem model to simulate the pH of PM2.5 over China during a period of heavy haze episodes in Beijing, and examined the sensitivity of modeled pH to various factors. The findings highlight the importance of NH3 emissions and aerosol phase state assumption in accurately predicting aerosol pH.