On the concept of condensation sink diameter

The condensation sink has turned out to be a useful concept in the evaluation of atmospheric aerosol dynamics. Particularly, using growth rates together with the condensation sink will help understanding the formation and growth processes of atmospheric aerosols. In this paper, we develop this formalism even further and introduce the concept of condensation sink diameter (CSD). It can be successfully used both when analyzing experimental data as well as in model calculations, especially when using simple multimodal monodisperse methods. The observed values of CSD for the whole distribution in Hyytiälä are seen to be of the order 100 nm. The connection between number median diameter, surface area diameter and CSD is investigated in depth as well as the role of the CSD when designing model runs of atmospheric particle formation and growth.