Identification

Title

An observation-based, reduced-form model for oxidation in the remote marine troposphere

Abstract

The hydroxyl radical (OH) fuels atmospheric chemical cycling as the main sink for methane and a driver of the formation and loss of many air pollutants, but direct OH observations are sparse. We develop and evaluate an observation -based proxy for short -term, spatial variations in OH (ProxyOH) in the remote marine troposphere using comprehensive measurements from the NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) airborne campaign. ProxyOH is a reduced form of the OH steady -state equation representing the dominant OH production and loss path-ways in the remote marine troposphere, according to box model simulations of OH constrained with ATom observations. ProxyOH comprises only eight variables that are generally observed by routine ground-or satellite -based instruments. ProxyOH scales linearly with in situ [OH] spatial variations along the ATom flight tracks (median r2 = 0.90, interquartile range = 0.80 to 0.94 across 2 -km altitude by 20 DEG; latitudinal regions). We deconstruct spatial variations in ProxyOH as a first -order approximation of the sensitivity of OH variations to individual terms. Two terms modulate within-region ProxyOH variations-water vapor (H2O) and, to a lesser extent, nitric oxide (NO). This implies that a limited set of observations could offer an avenue for observation -based mapping of OH spatial variations over much of the remote marine troposphere. Both H2O and NO are expected to change with climate, while NO also varies strongly with human activities. We also illustrate the utility of ProxyOH as a process -based approach for evaluating intermodel differences in remote marine tropospheric OH.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d78p64k2

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

2023-08-22T00:00:00Z

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