An advanced modeling study on the impacts and atmospheric implications of multiphase dimethyl sulfide chemistry

Significance Climate models indicate the importance of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) oxidation in new aerosol particle formation and the activation of cloud condensation nuclei over oceans. These effects contribute to strong natural negative radiative forcing and substantially influence the Earth’s climate. However, the DMS oxidation pathway is not well-represented, because earlier model studies only parameterized gas-phase DMS oxidation and neglected multiphase chemistry. Here, we performed the most comprehensive current mechanistic studies on multiphase DMS oxidation. The studies imply that neglecting multiphase chemistry leads to significant overestimation of SO 2 production and subsequent new particle formation. These findings show that an advanced treatment of multiphase DMS chemistry is necessary to improve marine atmospheric chemistry and climate model predictions.