[1] The atmospheric chemistry of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in urban areas results in the formation of 'photochemical smog', including secondary organic aerosol (SOA). State-of-the-art SOA models parameterize the results of simulation chamber experiments that bracket the conditions found in the polluted urban atmosphere. Here we show that in the real urban atmosphere reactive anthropogenic VOCs (AVOCs) produce much larger amounts of SOA than these models predict, even shortly after sunrise. Contrary to current belief, a significant fraction of the excess SOA is formed from first-generation AVOC oxidation products. Global models deem AVOCs a very minor contributor to SOA compared to biogenic VOCs (BVOCs). If our results are extrapolated to other urban areas, AVOCs could be responsible for additional 3-25 Tg yr À1 SOA production globally, and cause up to À0.1 W m À2 additional topof-the-atmosphere radiative cooling. Citation: Volkamer, R.,

Project Description and Overview: Objectives: Determining the overall impact of atmospheric aerosols on radiative balance requires knowledge of the relative amounts of scattering and absorbing aerosols, their distributions, and their chemical and optical properties. This proposal was a continuation of measurements of aerosol scattering and absorption begun in Mexico City in 2003 in collaboration with MCMA 2003 and continuing in the Atmospheric Science Program field study, Megacity Aerosol Experiment-Mexico City, (MAX-Mex) during March of 2006 aimed at determining the variability of aerosol optical properties. A suite of instrumentation was deployed in MAX-Mex at site TO, located in the northern part of the Mexico City Metropolitan Area, (MCMA), for the characterization of the aerosol optical properties in the field. Measurements were made of the following aerosol properties: (1) aerosol absorption as a function of wavelength, measured at two minute intervals with a 7-wavelength Aethalometer (2) aerosol scattering as a function of wavelength, measured at one minute intervals with a 3-wavelength nephelometer; 3) aerosol scattering as a function of relative humidity (RH), measured at one minute intervals with 2 single-wavelength nephelometers operated under dry (10% RH) and wet (80% RH) conditions; and 4) collection of size-fractionated aerosol samples on quartz fiber filters at 12 hour intervals (day/night) for further laboratory characterization. Aerosol filter samples were also collected at site Tl (located north of MCMA) for comparison with those collected in the city center. Preliminary results from in situ measurements have indicated an enhanced UV absorption in the afternoon over that expected from black carbon (BC) aerosols alone. These results are directly applicable to both modeling of aerosol radiative forcing and satellite optical depth retrieval algorithms. Both of these applications assume that the aerosol absorption is due only to BC with a wavelength dependence of A, " whereas results obtained in MAX-Mex show that the aerosol wavelength exponent varies over Mexico City from-0.7 to-1.5. All of the data collected in the field from the measurement sets 1-3 have been made available to the ASP community via the MILAGRO data site housed at NCAR. The laboratory characterization of aerosol samples collected in the ASP MAX-Mex field study compared results from Mexico City to samples collected at other sites, including Chicago, Little Rock, and Mt. Bachelor, OR. The project focused on obtaining complete spectral characterization of aerosols-especially their absorption characteristics as they relate to basic chemical functional groups. Particular attention was given to organics and from biogenic derived organic compounds. This included determinations of the UV-Visible-NIR characteristics of the aerosol absorption as reported as Angstrom Absorption Exponents. Correlation of these results with IR band observations of carboxylic acid, and carboxylate groups were conducted, along with past correlations with carbon...

Atmospheric aerosols often contain a substantial fraction of organic matter, but the role of organic compounds in new nanometer-sized particle formation is highly uncertain. Laboratory experiments show that nucleation of sulfuric acid is considerably enhanced in the presence of aromatic acids. Theoretical calculations identify the formation of an unusually stable aromatic acid-sulfuric acid complex, which likely leads to a reduced nucleation barrier. The results imply that the interaction between organic and sulfuric acids promotes efficient formation of organic and sulfate aerosols in the polluted atmosphere because of emissions from burning of fossil fuels, which strongly affect human health and global climate.

The reaction rate between atmospheric hydrogen chloride (HCl) and chlorine nitrate (ClONO(2)) is greatly enhanced in the presence of ice particles; HCl dissolves readily into ice, and the collisional reaction probability for ClONO(2) on the surface of ice with HCl in the mole fraction range from approximately 0.003 to 0.010 is in the range from approximately 0.05 to 0.1 for temperatures near 200 K. Chlorine (Cl(2)) is released into the gas phase on a time scale of at most a few milliseconds, whereas nitric acid (HNO(3)), the other product, remains in the condensed phase. This reaction could play an important role in explaining the observed depletion of ozone over Antarctica; it releases photolytically active chlorine from its most abundant reservoir species, and it promotes the formation of HNO(3) and thus removes nitrogen dioxide (NO(2)) from the gas phase. Hence it establishes the necessary conditions for the efficient catalytic destruction of ozone by halogenated free radicals. In the absence of HCl, ClONO(2) also reacts irreversibly with ice with a collision efficiency of approximately 0.02 at 200 K; the product hypochlorous acid (HOCI) is released to the gas phase on a time scale of minutes.

[1] The sources of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) are highly uncertain. Direct measurements of gas-phase glyoxal in Mexico City are compared to experimentally constrained model predictions. Observed glyoxal concentrations are found significantly below those predicted. Additional glyoxal sources are likely and would increase these differences; an additional glyoxal sink must be operative. The model-measurement differences are fully resolved by a sink parameterized from aerosol parameters as either (1) irreversible uptake to aerosol surface area (uptake coefficient g % 0.0037); reversible partitioning to (2) aerosol liquid water (effective Henry's law coefficient H eff % 4 Â 10 9 M atm À1 ), or (3) the oxygenated organic aerosol phase (activity coefficient z % 6 Â 10 À9 ); (4) a combination of the above. The missing sink has the potential to determine 70 -95% of the atmospheric lifetime of glyoxal. The glyoxal imbalance corresponds to several mg m À3 of equivalent SOA mass, and can explain at least 15% of the SOA formation in Mexico City.

Abstract. New primary and secondary organic aerosol modules have been added to PMCAMx, a three dimensional chemical transport model (CTM), for use with the SAPRC99 chemistry mechanism based on recent smog chamber studies. The new modelling framework is based on the volatility basis-set approach: both primary and secondary organic components are assumed to be semivolatile and photochemically reactive and are distributed in logarithmically spaced volatility bins. This new framework with the use of the new volatility basis parameters for low-NO x and high-NO x conditions tends to predict 4-6 times higher anthropogenic SOA concentrations than those predicted with the older generation of models. The resulting PMCAMx-2008 Aerosol (HOA) and Oxygenated Organic Aerosol (OOA) concentrations and diurnal profiles. The small OA underprediction during the rush-hour periods and overprediction in the afternoon suggest potential improvements to the description of fresh primary organic emissions and the formation of the oxygenated organic aerosols, respectively, although they may also be due to errors in the simulation of dispersion and vertical mixing. However, the AMS OOA data are not specific enough to prove that the model reproduces the organic aerosol observations for the right reasons. Other combinations of contributions of primary and secondary organic aerosol production rates may lead to similar results. The model results strongly suggest that, during the simulated period, transport of OA from outside the city was a significant contributor to the observed OA levels. Future simulations should use a larger domain in order to test whether the regional OA can be predicted with current SOA parameterizations. Sensitivity tests indicate that the predicted OA concentration is especially sensitive to the volatility distribution of the emissions in the lower volatility bins.

Abstract. An Aerodyne Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (AMS) was deployed at the CENICA Supersite, during the Mexico City Metropolitan Area field study (MCMA-2003) from 31 March-4 May 2003 to investigate particle concentrations, sources, and processes. The AMS provides real time information on mass concentration and composition of the non-refractory species in particulate matter less than 1 µm (NR-PM1) with high time and size-resolution. In order to account for the refractory material in the aerosol, we also present estimates of Black Carbon (BC) using an aethalometer and an estimate of the aerosol soil component obtained from Proton-Induced X-ray Emission Spectrometry (PIXE) analysis of impactor substrates. Comparisons of AMS + BC + soil mass concentration with other collocated particle instruments (a LASAIR Optical Particle Counter, a PM2.5 Tapered Element Oscillating Microbalance (TEOM), and a PM2.5 DustTrak Aerosol Monitor) show that the AMS + BC + soil mass concentration is consistent with the total PM2.5 mass concentration during MCMA-2003 within the combined uncertainties. In Mexico City, the organic fraction of the estimated PM2.5 at CENICA represents, on average, 54.6% (standard deviation σ=10%) of the mass, with the rest consisting of inorganic compounds (mainly ammonium nitrate and sulfate/ammonium salts), BC, and soil. Inorganic compounds represent 27.5% of PM2.5 (σ=10%); BC mass concentration is about 11% (σ=4%); while soil represents about 6.9% (σ=4%). Size distributions are presented for the AMS species; they show an accumulation mode that contains mainly oxygenated organic and secondary inorganic compounds. The organic size distributions also contain a small organic particle mode that is likely indicative of fresh traffic emissions; small particle modes exist for the inorganic species as well. Evidence suggests that the organic and inorganic species are not always internally mixed, especially in the small modes. The aerosol seems to be neutralized most of the time; however, there were some periods when there was not enough ammonium to completely neutralize the nitrate, chloride and sulfate present. The diurnal cycle and size distributions of nitrate suggest local photochemical production. On the other hand, sulfate appears to be produced on a regional scale. There are indications of new particle formation and growth events when concentrations of SO2 were high. Although the sources of chloride are not clear, this species seems to condense as ammonium chloride early in the morning and to evaporate as the temperature increases and RH decreases. The total and speciated mass concentrations and diurnal cycles measured during MCMA-2003 are similar to measurements during a previous field campaign at a nearby location.

The absorption cross sections of ozone have been measured in the wavelength range 185–350 nm and in the temperature range 225–298 K. The absolute ozone concentrations were established by measuring the pressure of pure gaseous samples in the 0.08‐ to 300‐torr range, and the UV spectra were recorded under conditions where less than 1% of the sample decomposed. The temperature dependence is significant for wavelengths longer than ∼280 nm. The absorption cross‐section values around 210 nm were found to be about 10% larger than the previously accepted values.