A13E-0394
Formaldehyde in the Tropical Western Pacific: Evaluation of model chemistry and emissions with in situ observations
Monday, 14 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Daniel C Anderson1, Julie M Nicely1, Ross J Salawitch2, Glenn M Wolfe3, Thomas F Hanisco3, Russell R Dickerson1, Eric C Apel4, Elliot L Atlas5, Sunil Baidar6, Nicola J Blake7, Teresa Lynn Campos8, Dexian Chen9, Barbara K Dix10, Rafael Fernandez11, L Gregory Huey12, Douglas E Kinnison8, Theodore Konstantinos Koenig13, Samuel R Hall8, Rebecca S Hornbrook8, J F Lamarque8, Laura Pan8, Daniel D Riemer14, Alfonso Saiz-Lopez15, David Tanner16, Kirk Ullmann8, Rainer M Volkamer10, Andrew John Weinheimer8, Michael Robert Le Breton17, Carl Percival18 and Thomas Bannan17, (1)University of Maryland College Park, College Park, MD, United States, (2)University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States, (3)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (4)University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, (5)University of Miami, Miami, FL, United States, (6)University of Colorado at Boulder, Cooperate Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO, United States, (7)University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States, (8)National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, United States, (9)Georgia Institute of Technology Main Campus, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Atlanta, GA, United States, (10)University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, (11)Institute of Physical Chemistry Rocasolano, CSIC, Madrid, Spain, (12)Georgia Institute of Technology Main Campus, Atlanta, GA, United States, (13)University of Colorado at Boulder, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Boulder, CO, United States, (14)Self Employed, Washington, DC, United States, (15)Spanish National Research Council, Zaragoza, Spain, (16)Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA, United States, (17)University of Manchester, Manchester, M13, United Kingdom, (18)University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
Abstract:
Atmospheric formaldehyde (HCHO) is an important tracer of deep convection, a decomposition product of most volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and a large contributor to HOx (HOx = OH + HO2) production in both urban and remote environments. Accurate representation of HCHO sources, chemistry, and distribution in global models [i.e., chemical transport models (CTMs) and chemistry climate models (CCMs)] is therefore vital for accurate estimation of HOx. Here, we present in situ HCHO observations from the CONTRAST field campaign, conducted in winter 2014 in the remote, tropical western Pacific. Observed HCHO is compared to output from a photochemical box model as well as the CAM-Chem CTM run using winter 2014 meteorology. Both models show consistent underestimation of observed HCHO, indicating possible oceanic HCHO emissions and/or unaccounted VOC sources. Both options are explored. The data will also be compared to output of HCHO in the POLMIP CTMs and newly formed CCMI archives. Implications for HCHO remote sensing will also be discussed.
