Abstract
High wintertime ozone levels have been observed in the Uintah Basin, Utah, a
sparsely populated rural region with intensive oil and gas operations. The
reactive nitrogen budget plays an important role in tropospheric ozone
formation. Measurements were taken during three field campaigns in the
winters of 2012, 2013 and 2014, which experienced varying climatic
conditions. Average concentrations of ozone and total reactive nitrogen were
observed to be 2.5 times higher in 2013 than 2012, with 2014 an intermediate
year in most respects. However, photochemically active NOx
(NO + NO2) remained remarkably similar all three years. Nitric acid
comprised roughly half of NOz ( ≡ NOy − NOx) in 2013,
with nighttime nitric acid formation through heterogeneous uptake of
N2O5 contributing approximately 6 times more than daytime formation. In
2012, N2O5 and ClNO2 were larger components of NOz relative to
HNO3. The nighttime N2O5 lifetime between the high-ozone year 2013
and the low-ozone year 2012 is lower by a factor of 2.6, and much of this is
due to higher aerosol surface area in the high-ozone year of 2013. A
box-model simulation supports the importance of nighttime chemistry on the
reactive nitrogen budget, showing a large sensitivity of NOx and ozone
concentrations to nighttime processes.
Citation
ID:
147773
Ref Key:
wild2016atmosphericreactive