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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-2195</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Disentangling Mechanistic Controls on Ultrafine Particle Number and Growth Across Seasons in an Urban Street Canyon</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Yanxia</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0003-3474-1392</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Hengheng</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2021-6867</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Shi</surname>
<given-names>Xuefeng</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Yaowei</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0725-6108</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Abou-Rizk</surname>
<given-names>Sophie</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0009-0008-3174-1473</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>B. Smith</surname>
<given-names>Jessica</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>An</surname>
<given-names>Zhaojin</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff8">
<sup>8</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wenzel</surname>
<given-names>Adrian</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6016-6174</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Song</surname>
<given-names>Junwei</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Leisner</surname>
<given-names>Thomas</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Keutsch</surname>
<given-names>Frank</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Chen</surname>
<given-names>Jia</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6350-6610</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Saathoff</surname>
<given-names>Harald</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1301-8010</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research Atmospheric Aerosol Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, 76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Environmental Sensing and Modeling, Technical University of Munich (TUM), Munich, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>School of Marine Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Zhuhai 519082, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Environmental Physics, Heidelberg University, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>now at: Research Institute for Applied Mechanics, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>now at: Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff8">
<label>8</label>
<addr-line>now at: School of Environment, Tsinghua University, 10084, Beijing, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>19</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>34</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Yanxia Li et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2195/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2195/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2195/egusphere-2026-2195.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-2195/egusphere-2026-2195.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Ultrafine particles (UFP; &amp;lt;100 nm diameter) play a disproportionate role in human health and atmospheric processes, yet their sources and growth mechanisms in urban environments in different seasons remain poorly constrained. This study presents a comprehensive characterization of UFP number concentrations, size distributions, chemical drivers, and meteorological influences in downtown Munich across summer, winter, and spring. We combine high resolution particle number size measurements with source characterization of organic aerosol (OA), semi-volatile organic aerosol (SVOA) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) to disentangle primary emissions from secondary processes. Results show that UFP number concentrations are driven by traffic- and cooking-related emissions, consistently peaking during nighttime boundary layer collapse due to accumulation. In contrast, ultrafine particle growth (from 40 to 80 nm) arises predominantly from condensation of semi-volatile or low-volatility organic vapours, with distinct seasonal pathways: biogenic and biomass burning OA at night, and photochemically oxidized low-volatility vapours during daytime in summer; biomass-burning and combustion-related SVOA in winter; and a mixed regime involving both primary emissions and moderate photochemistry in spring. No evidence of classical new particle formation appears in these non-nucleation UFP growth events. These findings demonstrate that UFP evolution in Munich is governed by the interplay between boundary-layer dynamics and seasonally varying organic vapour sources, highlighting the need for season-specific mitigation strategies.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="34"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Institute for Advanced Study, Technische Universität München</funding-source>
<award-id>291763</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>European Research Council</funding-source>
<award-id>101089203</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs3">
<funding-source>Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz</funding-source>
<award-id>TLK 01U-75487</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs4">
<funding-source>Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science</funding-source>
<award-id>NA23OAR4310383B</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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