Size distribution of sea-salt emissions as a function of relative humidity

Abstract This note presents a straightforward method to correct sea-salt-emission particle-size distributions according to local relative humidity. The proposed method covers a wide range of relative humidity (0.45–0.99) and its derivation incorporates recent laboratory results on sea-salt properties. The formulas are given as functions of relative humidity and compared with growth factors derived from earlier theoretical work. Application of this method to several common open-ocean and surf-zone sea-salt-particle source functions is described. The resulting sea-salt-emission aerosol distributions can be used directly in atmospheric model simulations without further correction.

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