Abstract. Nitrous acid (HONO) mixing ratios for the Houston metropolitan area were simulated with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) Model for an episode during the Texas Air Quality Study (TexAQS) II in August/September 2006 and compared to in-situ MC/IC (mistchamber/ion chromatograph) and long path DOAS (Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) measurements at three different altitude ranges. Several HONO sources were accounted for in simulations, such as gas phase formation, direct emissions, nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) hydrolysis, photoinduced formation from excited NO 2 and photo-induced conversion of NO 2 into HONO on surfaces covered with organic materials. Compared to the gas-phase HONO formation there was about a tenfold increase in HONO mixing ratios when additional HONO sources were taken into account, which improved the correlation between modeled and measured values. Concentrations of HONO simulated with only gas phase chemistry did not change with altitude, while measured HONO concentrations decrease with height. A trend of decreasing HONO concentration with altitude was well captured with CMAQ predicted concentrations when heterogeneous chemistry and photolytic sources of HONO were taken into account. Heterogeneous HONO production mainly accelerated morning ozone formation, albeit slightly. Also HONO formation from excited NO 2 only slightly affected HONO and ozone (O 3 ) concentrations. Photo-induced conversion of NO 2 into HONO on surfaces covered with organic materials turned out to be a strong source of daytime HONO. Since HONO immediately photo-dissociates during daytime its ambient mixing ratios were only marginally altered (up to 0.5 ppbv), but significant increase in the hydroxyl radical (OH) and ozone concentration was obtained. In contrast to heterogeneous HONO formation that mainly accelerated morning ozone formation, inclusion of photo-induced surface chemistry influenced ozone throughout the day.

Nitrous acid (HONO) and formaldehyde (HCHO) are important precursors for radicals and are believed to favor ozone formation significantly. Traffic emission data for both compounds are scarce and mostly outdated. A better knowledge of today's HCHO and HONO emissions related to traffic is needed to refine air quality models. Here the authors report results from continuous ambient air measurements taken at a highway junction in Houston, Texas, from July 15 to October 15, 2009. The observational data were compared with emission estimates from currently available mobile emission models (MOBILE6; MOVES [MOtor Vehicle Emission Simulator]). Observations indicated a molar carbon monoxide (CO) versus nitrogen oxides (NO x ) ratio of 6.01 AE 0.15 (r 2 ¼ 0.91), which is in agreement with other field studies. Both MOBILE6 and MOVES overestimate this emission ratio by 92% and 24%, respectively. For HCHO/CO, an overall slope of 3.14 AE 0.14 g HCHO/kg CO was observed. Whereas MOBILE6 largely underestimates this ratio by 77%, MOVES calculates somewhat higher HCHO/CO ratios (1.87) than MOBILE6, but is still significantly lower than the observed ratio. MOVES shows high HCHO/CO ratios during the early morning hours due to heavyduty diesel off-network emissions. The differences of the modeled CO/NO x and HCHO/CO ratios are largely due to higher NO x and HCHO emissions in MOVES (30% and 57%, respectively, increased from MOBILE6 for 2009), as CO emissions were about the same in both models. The observed HONO/NO x emission ratio is around 0.017 AE 0.0009 kg HONO/kg NO x which is twice as high as in MOVES. The observed NO 2 /NO x emission ratio is around 0.16 AE 0.01 kg NO 2 /kg NO x , which is a bit more than 50% higher than in MOVES. MOVES overestimates the CO/CO 2 emission ratio by a factor of 3 compared with the observations, which is 0.0033 AE 0.0002 kg CO/kg CO 2 . This as well as CO/NO x overestimation is coming from light-duty gasoline vehicles.Implications: Nitrous acid (HONO) and formaldehyde (HCHO) are important precursors for radicals that ultimately contribute to ozone formation. There still exist uncertainties in emission sources of HONO and HCHO and thus regional air quality modeling still tend to underestimate concentrations of free radicals in the atmosphere. This paper demonstrates that the latest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) traffic emission model MOVES still shows significant deviations from observed emission ratios, in particular underestimation of HCHO/CO and HONO/NO x ratios. Improving the performance of MOVES may improve regional air quality modeling.

[1] Air quality simulations were performed for the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria area for springtime conditions in May and June of 2009. Meteorological parameters predicted by Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, for which data assimilation with recursive objective analysis was performed, are well simulated most of the time. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model driven by meteorology from WRF simulates ozone and many other trace species, including radical precursors such as HCHO and HONO, with a satisfactory agreement with observations. While CMAQ satisfactorily captures the daily variations of the OH radical, it sometimes underestimates its high daytime values. Concentrations of HO 2 are often underpredicted in polluted air masses and persistently severely underpredicted at low NO x conditions, when the Houston air is affected by marine air masses. In contrast, concentrations of H 2 O 2 and CH 3 OOH are almost always overpredicted by the model, the overprediction occurs frequently in the polluted air and occurs always when marine air is encountered. Those mispredictions are consistent despite day-to-day variations in meteorological conditions and emissions and bring into question current representation of radical-related chemistry in the model as radical production and recirculation in the model is overtaken by termination processes and creation of more stable compounds, such as H 2 O 2 and CH 3 OOH. Smaller model biases of H 2 O 2 and peroxides are associated with lower humidity. The relative importance of various photolysis processes as radical sources in the Houston atmosphere was also elucidated. Morning HO x formation is dominated by HONO while ozone contributes the most during midday. HONO contribution to HO x formation is more pronounced at the surface layer where most of it is formed, radical production from ozone is more important at elevated levels where higher concentrations of ozone are observed. Formaldehyde contributes up to 40% and also peaks during midday, but on days when high morning concentrations of formaldehyde are observed, its contribution to HO x in the morning exceeds that of ozone. Photolysis of H 2 O 2 is a minor contributor to radical levels.Citation: Czader, B. H., X. Li, and B. Rappenglueck (2013), CMAQ modeling and analysis of radicals, radical precursors, and chemical transformations,

Abstract. Accurate meteorological fields are imperative for correct chemical transport modeling. Observation nudging, along with objective analysis, is generally considered a lowcost and effective technique to improve meteorological simulations. However, the meteorological impact of observation nudging on chemistry has not been well characterized. This study involved two simulations to analyze the impact of observation nudging on simulated meteorology and ozone concentrations during the 2013 Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality (DISCOVER-AQ) Texas campaign period, using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) models. The results showed improved correlations between observed and simulated parameters. For example, the index of agreement (IOA) improved by about 9 % for surface temperature and 6-11 % for surface zonal (U-WIND) and meridional (V-WIND) winds when observation nudging was employed. Analysis of a cold front event indicated that nudging improved the timing of wind transition during the front passage. Observation nudging also reduced the model biases for the planetary boundary layer height predictions. Additionally, the IOA for CMAQ simulated surface ozone improved by 6 % during the simulation period. The high-ozone episode on 25 September was a post-front ozone event in Houston. The small-scale morning wind shifts near the Houston Ship Channel combined with higher aloft ozone early morning likely caused the day's ozone exceedance. While observation nudging did not recreate the wind shifts on that day and failed to reproduce the observed high ozone, analyses of surface and aircraft data found that observation nudging helped the model yield improved ozone predictions. In a 2 h period during the event, substantially better winds in the sensitivity case noticeably improved the ozone. The average IOA for ozone in the period increased from just over 0.4 to near 0.7. Further work on improving the capability of nudging to reproduce local meteorological events such as stagnations and wind reversals could enhance a chemical transport model's skill for predicting high-ozone events.

Abstract. Recent measurements in Houston show that HONO traffic emissions are 1.7 % of NO x emissions, which is about twice the previously estimated value of 0.8 % based on tunnel measurements in 2001. The 0.8 % value is widely used to estimate mobile emissions of HONO for air quality modeling applications. This study applies the newly estimated HONO / NO x ratio in the WRF-SMOKE-CMAQ modeling system and estimates the impact of higher HONO traffic emissions on its mixing ratios. Since applied emission inventory resulted in overestimates of NO x mixing ratios and because HONO emissions and chemical formation depend on the magnitude of NO x , thus, before proceeding with HONO emission modifications emissions of NO x were adjusted to reflect current emission trends. The modeled mixing ratios of NO x were evaluated against measured data from a number of sites in the Houston area. Overall, the NO x mean value dropped from 11.11 ppbv in the base case to 7.59 ppbv in the NO x -adjusted case becoming much closer to the observed mean of 7.76 ppbv. The index of agreement (IOA) is improved in the reduced NO x case (0.71 vs. 0.75) and the absolute mean error (AME) is lowered from 6.76 to 4.94. The modeled mixing ratios of HONO were evaluated against the actual observed values attained at the Moody Tower in Houston. The model could not reproduce the morning HONO peaks when the low HONO / NO x ratio of 0.008 was used to estimate HONO emissions. Doubling HONO emissions from mobile sources resulted in higher mixing ratios, and the mean value increased from 0.30 to 0.41 ppbv becoming closer to the observed mean concentrations of 0.69 but still low; AME was slightly reduced from 0.46 to 0.43. IOA for simulation that used the 2001 emission values is 0.63 while for simulation with higher HONO emission it increased to 0.70. Increased HONO emissions from mobile sources resulted in a 14 % increase in OH during morning time at the location of the Moody Tower and 3 % when averaged over an urban area. The increase calculated for daytime was 7 and 1 % for the Moody Tower and the urban area, respectively. The impact on ozone was found to be marginal. This study results shed light on the underestimated HONO and OH in the morning from global/regional chemical transport models with the typical emission of 0.8 % HONO emission out of the total NO x emissions.

No abstract

Nitrous acid (HONO) mixing ratios for the Houston metropolitan area were simulated with the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model for an episode during the Texas Air Quality Study (TexAQS) II in August/September 2006 and compared to in-situ MC/IC (mist-chamber/ion chromatograph) and long path DOAS (Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy) measurements at three different altitudes. Several HONO sources were accounted for in simulations, such as gas phase formation, direct emissions, nitrogen dioxide (NO₂^*) hydrolysis, photo-induced formation from excited NO₂^* and photo-induced conversion of NO₂ into HONO on surfaces covered with organic materials. Compared to the gas-phase HONO formation there was about a tenfold increase in HONO mixing ratios when additional HONO sources were taken into account, which improved the correlation between modeled and measured values. Concentrations of HONO simulated with only gas phase chemistry did not change with altitude, while measured HONO concentrations decrease with height. A trend of decreasing HONO concentration with altitude was well captured with CMAQ predicted concentrations when heterogeneous chemistry and photolytic sources of HONO were taken into account. Heterogeneous HONO production mainly accelerated morning ozone formation, albeit slightly. Also HONO formation from excited NO₂ only slightly affected HONO and ozone (O₃) concentrations. Photo-induced conversion of NO₂ into HONO on surfaces covered with organic materials turned out to be a strong source of daytime HONO. Since HONO immediately photo-dissociates during daytime its ambient mixing ratios were only marginally altered (up to 0.5 ppbv), but significant increase in the hydroxyl radical (OH) and ozone concentration was obtained. In contrast to heterogeneous HONO formation that mainly accelerated morning ozone formation, inclusion of photo-induced surface chemistry influenced ozone throughout the day

The extensive use of natural gas (NG) in urban areas for heating and cooking and as a vehicular fuel is associated with potentially significant emissions of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas that influences the chemistry of the atmosphere, can be emitted from different sources including leakage from NG infrastructure, transportation activities, end-use uncombusted NG, landfills and livestock. Although significant CH4 leakage associated with aging local NG distribution systems in the U.S. has been reported, further investigation is required to study the role of this infrastructure component and other NG-related sources in atmospheric CH4 enhancements in urban centers. In this study, neighborhood-scale mobile-based monitoring of potential CH4 emissions associated with NG in the Greater Houston area (GHA) is reported. A novel dual-gas 3.337 µm interband cascade laser-based sensor system was developed and mobile-mode deployed for simultaneous CH4 and ethane (C2H6) monitoring during a period of over 14 days, corresponding to ~ 90 hours of effective data collection during summer 2016. The sampling campaign covered ~ 250 exclusive road miles and was primarily concentrated on eight residential zones with distinct infrastructure age and NG usage levels. A moderate number of elevated CH4 concentration events (37 episodes) with mixing ratios not exceeding 3.60 ppmv and associated with atmospheric background enhancements below 1.21 ppmv were observed during the field campaign. Source discrimination analyses based on the covariance between CH4 and C2H6 levels indicated the predominance of thermogenic sources 1000 2000 3000 4000 Time (sec)