Articles | Volume 8, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-8-355-2016
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-8-355-2016
26 Aug 2016
 | 26 Aug 2016

Long-term observations of tropospheric particle number size distributions and equivalent black carbon mass concentrations in the German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN)

Wolfram Birmili, Kay Weinhold, Fabian Rasch, André Sonntag, Jia Sun, Maik Merkel, Alfred Wiedensohler, Susanne Bastian, Alexander Schladitz, Gunter Löschau, Josef Cyrys, Mike Pitz, Jianwei Gu, Thomas Kusch, Harald Flentje, Ulrich Quass, Heinz Kaminski, Thomas A. J. Kuhlbusch, Frank Meinhardt, Andreas Schwerin, Olaf Bath, Ludwig Ries, Holger Gerwig, Klaus Wirtz, and Markus Fiebig

Abstract. The German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN) is a cooperative atmospheric observation network, which aims at improving the scientific understanding of aerosol-related effects in the troposphere. The network addresses research questions dedicated to both climate- and health-related effects. GUAN's core activity has been the continuous collection of tropospheric particle number size distributions and black carbon mass concentrations at 17 observation sites in Germany. These sites cover various environmental settings including urban traffic, urban background, rural background, and Alpine mountains. In association with partner projects, GUAN has implemented a high degree of harmonisation of instrumentation, operating procedures, and data evaluation procedures. The quality of the measurement data is assured by laboratory intercomparisons as well as on-site comparisons with reference instruments. This paper describes the measurement sites, instrumentation, quality assurance, and data evaluation procedures in the network as well as the EBAS repository, where the data sets can be obtained (doi:10.5072/guan).

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Short summary
The German Ultrafine Aerosol Network (GUAN) provides new continuous data on tropospheric aerosol particles including number size distributions and black carbon. The data are equally relevant for atmospheric studies related to both climate-related and health-related issues. The published data underwent uniform measures of quality assurance and control. The data are available free of charge at the World Data Center for Aerosols EBAS data repository.