The Significant Contribution of Polycyclic Aromatic Nitrogen Heterocycles to Light Absorption in the Winter North China Plain.

By quantifying the absorption of black carbon (BC), brown carbon (BrC) and the lensing effect, we found that BrC dominates the total absorption at 450 nm, and the largest absorption contribution proportion of BrC could reach 78.3% during heavy pollution. The average absorption enhancement (E_abs) at 530 nm was only 1.38, indicating that BC is not coated well here. The average value of the absorption Ångstrom exponent (AAE) between 450 nm and 530 nm was 5.3, suggesting a high concentration of BrC in Wangdu. CHN+ was the greatest contributor to the light absorption of molecules detected in MSOC with a proportion of 12.2–22.4%, in which the polycyclic aromatic nitrogen heterocycles (PANHs) were the dominant compounds. The C₆H₅NO₃ and its homologous series accounted for 3.0–11.3%, and the C₁₅H₉N and its homologous series, including one C₁₆H₁₁N and three C₁₇H₁₃N compounds, accounted for 5.1–12.3%. The absorption of these PANHs is comparable to that of nitro–aromatics, which should attract more attention to the impact of climate radiative forcing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]