The particle number size distribution is an important parameter to characterize the atmospheric aerosol and its influence on the Earth's climate. Here we describe a new optical particle size spectrometer (OPSS) for measurements of the accumulation mode particle number size distribution in the tropopause region on board a passenger aircraft (IAGOS-CARIBIC observatory: In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System – Civil Aircraft for Regular Investigation of the Atmosphere Based on an Instrument Container). A modified KS93 particle sensor from RION Co., Ltd., together with a new airflow system and a dedicated data acquisition system, is the key component of the CARIBIC OPSS. The instrument records individual particle pulse signal curves in the particle size range 130–1110 nm diameter (for a particle refractive index of 1.47-i0.006) together with a time stamp and thus allows the post-flight choice of the time resolution and the size distribution bin width. The CARIBIC OPSS has a 50 % particle detection diameter of 152 nm and a maximum asymptotic counting efficiency of 98 %. The instrument's measurement performance shows no pressure dependency and no particle coincidence for free tropospheric conditions. The size response function of the CARIBIC OPSS was obtained by a polystyrene latex calibration in combination with model calculations. Particle number size distributions measured with the new OPSS in the lowermost stratosphere agreed within a factor of 2 in concentration with balloon-borne measurements over western North America. Since June 2010 the CARIBIC OPSS is deployed once per month in the IAGOS-CARIBIC observatory.

The marine aerosol arriving at Barbados (Ragged Point) was characterized during two 3-week long measurement periods in November 2010 and April 2011, in the context of the measurement campaign CARRIBA (Cloud, Aerosol, Radiation and tuRbulence in the trade wInd regime over BArbados). Through a comparison between ground-based and airborne measurements it was shown that the former are representative of the marine boundary layer at least up to cloud base. In general, total particle number concentrations (Ntotal) ranged from as low as 100 up to 800 cm−3, while number concentrations for cloud condensation nuclei (NCCN) at a supersaturation of 0.26 % ranged from some 10 to 600 cm−3. Ntotal and NCCN depended on the air mass origin. Three distinct types of air masses were found. One type showed elevated values for both Ntotal and NCCN and could be attributed to long-range transport from Africa, by which biomass burning particles from the Sahel region and/or mineral dust particles from the Sahara were advected. The second and third type both had values for NCCN below 200 cm−3 and a clear minimum in the particle number size distribution (NSD) around 70 to 80 nm (Hoppel minimum). While for one of these two types the accumulation mode was dominating (albeit less so than for air masses advected from Africa), the Aitken mode dominated the other and contributed more than 50 % of all particles. These Aitken mode particles likely were formed by new particle formation no more than 3 days prior to the measurements. Hygroscopicity of particles in the CCN size range was determined from CCN measurements to be κ = 0.66 on average, which suggests that these particles contain mainly sulfate and do not show a strong influence from organic material, which might generally be the case for the months during which measurements were made. The average κ could be used to derive NCCN from measured number size distributions, showing that this is a valid approach to obtain NCCN. Although the total particulate mass sampled on filters was found to be dominated by Na+ and Cl−, this was found to be contributed by a small number of large particles ( > 500 nm, mostly even in the super-micron size range). Based on a three-modal fit, a sea spray mode observed in the NSDs was found to contribute 90 % to the total particulate mass but only 4 to 10 % to Ntotal and up to 15 % to NCCN. This is in accordance with finding no correlation between Ntotal and wind speed.

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The CARRIBA (Cloud, Aerosol, Radiation and tuRbulence in the trade wInd regime over BArbados) project, focused on high resolution and collocated measurements of thermodynamic, turbulent, microphysical, and radiative properties of trade wind cumuli over Barbados, is introduced. The project is based on two one-month field campaigns in November 2010 (climatic wet season) and April 2011 (climatic dry season). Observations are based on helicopter-borne and ground-based measurements in an area of 100 km2 off the coast of Barbados. CARRIBA is accompanied by long-term observations at the Barbados Cloud Observatory located at the East coast of Barbados since early in 2010 and which provides a longer-term context for the CARRIBA measurements. The deployed instrumentation and sampling strategy are presented together with a classification of the meteorological conditions. The two campaigns were influenced by different air masses advected from the Caribbean area, the Atlantic Ocean, and the African continent which led to distinct aerosol conditions. Pristine conditions with low aerosol particle number concentrations of ~100 cm3 were alternating with periods influenced by Saharan dust or aerosol from biomass burning resulting in comparably high number concentrations of ~ 500 cm3. The biomass burning aerosol was originating from both the Caribbean area and Africa. The shallow cumulus clouds responded to the different aerosol conditions with a wide range of mean droplet sizes and number concentrations. Two days with different aerosol and cloud microphysical properties but almost identical meteorological conditions have been analyzed in detail. The differences in the droplet number concentration and droplet sizes appear not to show any significant change for turbulent cloud mixing, but the relative roles of droplet inertia and sedimentation in initiating coalescence, as well as the cloud reflectivity, do change substantially.