The concentrations of ozone, nitrogen oxides, and nonmethane hydrocarbons measured near the surface in a variety of urban, suburban, rural, and remote locations are analyzed and compared in order to elucidate the relationships between ozone, its photochemical precursors, and the sources of these precursors. While a large gradient is found among remote, rural, and urban/suburban nitrogen oxide concentrations, the total hydrocarbon reactivity in all continental locations is found to be comparable. Apportionment of the observed hydrocarbon species to mobile and stationary anthropogenic sources and biogenic sources suggests that present-day emission inventories for the United States underestimate the size of mobile emissions. The analysis also suggests a significant role for biogenic hydrocarbon emissions in many urban/suburban locations and a dominant role for these sources in rural areas of the eastern United States. As one moves from remote locations to rural locations and then from rural to urban/suburban locations, ozone and nitrogen oxide concentrations tend to increase in a consistent manner while total hydrocarbon reactivity does not. hydrocarbon concentrations in four chemically distinct regimes of the atmospheric boundary layer, each having a distinct mix of anthropogenic and natural hydrocarbon and NOx emissions. These regimes are: I, the urban/suburban atmosphere, which is the regime most strongly impacted by anthropogenic emissions; II, the rural atmosphere, which is somewhat less impacted by anthropogenic emissions and more impacted by natural emissions than that of the urban atmosphere; III, the atmosphere over the remote, tropical forest which is essentially free of anthropogenic volatile organic compounds (VOC) and NOx emissions and strongly influenced by natural emissions; and IV, the remote, marine atmosphere, which is not only free of anthropogenic emissions but is also characterized by relatively small biogenic sources of VOC and NO x. Because we are most interested in the conditions that foster ozone episodes, our analysis concentrates on observations made during the daylight hours of the summer months.In the sections below we first briefly summarize the fundamentals of the photochemical smog mechanism and the nonlinearities inherent in this system and then discuss the concentrations of 03, NOx, and hydrocarbons typically observed in the four regimes listed above. PHOTOCHEMICAL SMOGWhile uncertainties remain in our understanding of tropospheric photochemistry, the basic set of reactions that lead to 03 production have been identified. These reactions, commonly referred to in the aggregate as the "photochemical smog" mechanism, involve the oxidation of hydrocarbons and other volatile organic compounds in the presence of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sunlight [Haagen-Srnit, 1952; $einfeld, 1988]. Typical of this mechanism are reactions (R1) through (R7),RH + OH--> R + H20 (R2) R + 02 + M--> RO2 + M (R3) RO 2 + NO--> RO + NO 2 (R4) RO + 0 2 --> HO 2 + RCHO 6037
The chemical complexity of atmospheric organic aerosol (OA) has caused substantial uncertainties in understanding its origins and environmental impacts. Here, we provide constraints on OA origins through compositional characterization with molecular-level details. Our results suggest that secondary OA (SOA) from monoterpene oxidation accounts for approximately half of summertime fine OA in Centreville, AL, a forested area in the southeastern United States influenced by anthropogenic pollution. We find that different chemical processes involving nitrogen oxides, during days and nights, play a central role in determining the mass of monoterpene SOA produced. These findings elucidate the strong anthropogenic-biogenic interaction affecting ambient aerosol in the southeastern United States and point out the importance of reducing anthropogenic emissions, especially under a changing climate, where biogenic emissions will likely keep increasing.
[1] Observations of C 1 -C 10 hydrocarbon mixing ratios measured by in situ instrumentation at the La Porte super site during the TexAQS 2000 field experiment are reported. The La Porte data were compared to a roadway vehicle exhaust signature obtained from canister samples collected in the Houston Washburn tunnel during the same summer to better understand the impact of petrochemical emissions of hydrocarbons at the site. It is shown that the abundance of ethene, propene, 1-butene, C 2 -C 4 alkanes, hexane, cyclohexane, methylcyclohexane, isopropylbenzene, and styrene at La Porte were systematically affected by petrochemical industry emissions. Coherent power law relationships between frequency distribution widths of hydrocarbon mixing ratios and their local lifetimes clearly identify two major source groups, roadway vehicle emissions and industrial emissions. Distributions of most aromatics and long chain alkanes were consistent with roadway vehicle emissions as the dominant source. Air mass reactivity was generally dominated by C 1 -C 3 aldehydes. Propene and ethene sometimes dominated air mass reactivity with HO loss frequencies often greater than 10 s À1 . Ozone mixing ratios near 200 ppbv were observed on two separate occasions, and these air masses appear to have been affected by industrial emissions of alkenes from the Houston Ship Channel. The La Porte data provide evidence of the importance of industrial emissions of ethene and propene on air mass reactivity and ozone formation in Houston.
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