Using radiocarbon to constrain black and organic carbon aerosol sources in Salt Lake City

Black carbon (BC) and organic carbon (OC) aerosols are important components of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) in polluted urban environments. Quantifying the contribution of fossil fuel and biomass combustion to BC and OC concentrations is critical for developing and validating effective air quality control measures and climate change mitigation policy. We used radiocarbon (¹⁴C) to measure fossil and contemporary biomass contributions to BC and OC at three locations in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, during 2012–2014, including during winter inversion events. Aerosol filters were analyzed with the Swiss_4S thermal‐optical protocol to isolate BC. We measured fraction modern (fM) of BC and total carbon in PM_2.5 with accelerator mass spectrometry and derived the fM of OC using isotope mass balance. Combined with ¹⁴C information of end‐member composition, our data set of 31 ¹⁴C aerosol measurements provided a baseline of the fossil and contemporary biomass components of carbonaceous aerosol. We show that fossil fuels were the dominant source of carbonaceous aerosol during winter, contributing 88% (80–98%) of BC and 58% (48–69%) of OC. While the concentration of both BC and OC increased during inversion events, the relative source contributions did not change. The sources of BC also did not vary throughout the year, while OC had a considerably higher contemporary biomass component in summer at 62% (49–76%) and was more variable. Our results suggest that in order to reduce PM_2.5 levels in Salt Lake City to meet national standards, a more stringent policy targeting mobile fossil fuel sources may be necessary.