Statistical thermodynamic analysis reveals changes in aerosol particle number size distribution during new particle formation, suggesting insights into environmental impacts.
The aerosol particle number size distribution (PNSD) is pivotal in estimating the corresponding transport, transformation, environmental impacts, and climate effects. This study explores the statistical thermodynamic characteristics of PNSD during new particle formation (NPF) and growth in clean atmospheric environments. Using the maximum entropy principle, we demonstrate that the PNSD follows the Weibull distribution of n(Dp) = N0Dpq−1 e−αDpq (q is the shape parameter). Field observation and theoretical analysis show that q would evolve from above 6 to 3 during different stages of NPF due to the various strengths of condensation, indicating that the aerosol is in the statistical thermodynamic equilibrium state. The findings provide insights into the underlying physical mechanisms governing aerosol behavior and have implications for model simulations of aerosol evolution.
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Zhao et al. (2025) studied this question.
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