Identification

Title

SO2 observations and sources in the Western Pacific

Abstract

Sulfur dioxide (SO2) is one of the primary source gases for aerosols in the atmosphere. Even at low concentrations, its presence in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS) provides an important source for aerosol nucleation and growth, and SO2 has been postulated to be important for the stratospheric sulfur budget. To understand aerosol nucleation and global radiative effects, it is therefore important to quantify how much SO2 emitted from biogenic and anthropogenic processes at the surface is transported into the UT/LS. Much of the potential transport is expected to occur in regions of significant deep convection such as the western Pacific warm pool. Here we use measurements from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) WB-57F Pacific Oxidants Sulfur Ice and DehydratiON (POSIDON) mission that was based in Guam in 2016 to examine the distribution and sources of SO2 in the western Pacific UT/LS region. During POSIDON, a few events related to volcanic emissions as well as transport by tropical cyclones were observed that brought up to 86pptv of SO2 above 14-km altitude. Overall however, the measurements corroborate our earlier findings that SO2 near the tropical tropopause is typically quite low (similar to 5pptv) and globally the transport of SO2 into the stratosphere is likely a minor source of stratospheric aerosols.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d76t0qpx

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-12-04T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact