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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>
<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-2026-6027</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Measurement report: Radiocarbon reveals contrasting size distributions of black carbon from fossil fuels and biomass burning in Guangzhou, China</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wei</surname>
<given-names>Nannan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Xu</surname>
<given-names>Buqing</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9432-648X</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>Zhu</surname>
<given-names>Sanyuan</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>Lu</surname>
<given-names>Lingxiao</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Jing</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>Jiang</surname>
<given-names>Fan</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>Liu</surname>
<given-names>Junwen</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7252-3017</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Cheng</surname>
<given-names>Zhineng</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>Zhao</surname>
<given-names>Shizhen</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>Li</surname>
<given-names>Kechang</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>Li</surname>
<given-names>Jun</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3637-1642</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>Zhang</surname>
<given-names>Gan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of South China, Hengyang, Hunan, 421001, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Advanced Environmental Technology, Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Key Laboratory of Ecological Environment Emergency and Sudden Risk Control, South China  Institute of Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Guangzhou 510655,   PR China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Institute for Environmental and Climate Research, College of Environment and Climate, Jinan  University, Guangzhou, 511443, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>06</day>
<month>11</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>33</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Nannan Wei 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-2026-6027/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6027/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6027/egusphere-2026-6027.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-6027/egusphere-2026-6027.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>The size of atmospheric black carbon (BC) is a key determinant of its health and climate impacts. However, how BC sources vary with particle size remains poorly understood. We conducted radiocarbon (&lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;C)-based source apportionment of atmospheric BC in Guangzhou, China, across six discrete particle-size fractions from &amp;lt; 0.49 &amp;mu;m to 7.2&amp;ndash;10 &amp;mu;m during winter and summer. The dataset comprises 81 &amp;Delta;&lt;sup&gt;14&lt;/sup&gt;C measurements, resolving fossil-fuel and biomass-burning contributions across particle sizes. Additional &amp;delta;&lt;sup&gt;13&lt;/sup&gt;C measurements of four representative winter sample sets were incorporated into a Bayesian model to apportion fossil-derived BC between coal and petroleum sources. Fossil sources dominated BC, contributing 91 &amp;plusmn; 3 % in winter and 73 &amp;plusmn; 1 % in summer. In both seasons, the fossil contribution first increased and then decreased with increasing particle size,&lt;span&gt; &lt;/span&gt;peaking in the 0.95&amp;ndash;1.5 &amp;mu;m fraction (95 % in winter and 88 % in summer) and declining to its lowest level in the 7.2&amp;ndash;10 &amp;mu;m fraction (82 % in winter and 50 % in summer). Coal and petroleum made comparable contributions to BC in the selected winter samples, with no consistent particle-size-dependent trends. Thus, the particle-size dependence of BC sources was driven mainly by an increasing biomass-burning contribution toward the coarse fraction, rather than by a systematic shift in the relative contributions of coal and petroleum. These findings show that bulk source fractions do not fully capture the source composition of BC across particle sizes, underscoring the need to account for source-specific size distributions when interpreting BC transport, removal, and associated climate and health effects.</p>
</abstract>
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