Chemistry of hydrogen oxide radicals (HOx) in the Arctic troposphere in spring

We use observations from the April 2008 NASA ARCTAS aircraft campaign to the North American Arctic, interpreted with a global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem), to better understand the sources and cycling of hydrogen oxide radicals (HOx≡H+OH+peroxy radicals) and their reservoirs (HOy≡HOx+peroxides) in the springtime Arctic atmosphere. We find that a standard gas-phase chemical mechanism overestimates the observed HO2 and H2O2 concentrations. Computation of HOx and HOy gas-phase chemical budgets on the basis of the aircraft observations also indicates a large missing sink for both. We hypothesize that this could reflect HO2 uptake by aerosols, favored by low temperatures and relatively high aerosol loadings, through a mechanism that does not produce H2O2. We implemented such an uptake of HO2 by aerosol in the model using a standard reactive uptake coefficient parameterization with γ(HO2) values ranging from 0.02 at 275 K to 0.5 at 220 K. This successfully reproduces the concentrations and vertical distributions of the different HOx species and HOy reservoirs. HO2 uptake by aerosol is then a major HOx and HOy sink, decreasing mean OH and HO2 concentrations in the Arctic troposphere by 32% and 31% respectively. Better rate and product data for HO2 uptake by aerosol are needed to understand this role of aerosols in limiting the oxidizing power of the Arctic atmosphere.

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Copyright Author(s) 2010. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.


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Author Mao, Jingqui
Jacob, Daniel
Evans, M.
Olson, J.
Ren, Xinrong
Brune, William
St. Clair, Jason
Crounse, John
Spencer, Kathleen
Beaver, M.
Wennberg, Paul
Cubison, Michael
Jimenez, Jose
Fried, Alan
Weibring, Petter
Walega, James
Hall, Sam
Weinheimer, Andrew
Cohen, R.
Chen, G.
Crawford, James
McNaughton, C.
Clarke, A.
Jaeglé, Lyatt
Fisher, Jenny
Yantosca, Robert
Le Sager, Philippe
Carouge, Claire
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2010-07-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:51:36.753008
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:10375
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Mao, Jingqui, Jacob, Daniel, Evans, M., Olson, J., Ren, Xinrong, Brune, William, St. Clair, Jason, Crounse, John, Spencer, Kathleen, Beaver, M., Wennberg, Paul, Cubison, Michael, Jimenez, Jose, Fried, Alan, Weibring, Petter, Walega, James, Hall, Sam, Weinheimer, Andrew, Cohen, R., Chen, G., Crawford, James, McNaughton, C., Clarke, A., Jaeglé, Lyatt, Fisher, Jenny, Yantosca, Robert, Le Sager, Philippe, Carouge, Claire. (2010). Chemistry of hydrogen oxide radicals (HOx) in the Arctic troposphere in spring. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7tq620x. Accessed 15 February 2025.

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