A23A-0271
Global Pattern of Hydrocarbons in the Upper Troposphere and Stratosphere from ACE-FTS measurements Compared to GEOS-Chem Simulations
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Ja-Ho Koo1, Kaley A Walker2, Ashley Jones1, Patrick Sheese1, Dylan B. A. Jones3, Chris D. Boone4, Peter F Bernath5 and Gloria L Manney6, (1)University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada, (2)University of Toronto, Department of Physics, Toronto, ON, Canada, (3)University of Toronto, Physics, Toronto, ON, Canada, (4)University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, (5)Old Dominion University, Gloucester, VA, United States, (6)NorthWest Research Associates, Inc, Socorro, NM, United States
Abstract:
Organic carbon species, herein referred to as hydrocarbons, are important components for describing and understanding the influence of natural and anthropogenic emissions on atmospheric chemistry. Analysis of the global pattern of hydrocarbons is therefore an important step to understand the regional and seasonal variation of air pollution and natural fire events. The Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment Fourier Transform Spectrometer (ACE-FTS) has monitored trace gases in the upper troposphere and stratosphere based on solar occultation measurements for more than ten years. In this study, we investigate the global pattern of seven hydrocarbon species (CO, C2H6, C2H2, HCN, H2CO, CH3OH, and HCOOH) and OCS using the ACE-FTS version 3.5 dataset from 2004 to 2013. All hydrocarbons show strong seasonal variation and regional differences, but the detailed pattern differs according to the speciation of the hydrocarbons. For example in the Northern Hemisphere, CO, C2H6, and C2H2 show the highest mixing ratios in winter, but high CH3OH and HCOOH appear in summer. In the Southern hemisphere, H2CO, HCN, and HCOOH show high mixing ratios in springtime. These patterns indicate the effect of different emission sources including fuel combustion, wildfire emission, and chemical production. Correlation with CO also reflects these seasonal and regional differences and can provide useful information to characterize each hydrocarbon emission. We also compared the ACE-FTS measurements with GEOS-Chem output to examine the model performance and spatiotemporal patterns.
