Lightning-produced NO_x over Brazil during TROCCINOX: Airborne measurements in tropical and subtropical thunderstorms and the importance of mesoscale convective systems

International audienceDuring the TROCCINOX field experiments in February?March 2004 and February 2005, airborne in situ measurements of NO, NOy, CO, and O3 mixing ratios and the J(NO2) photolysis rate were carried out in the anvil outflow of thunderstorms over southern Brazil. Both tropical and subtropical thunderstorms were investigated, depending on the location of the South Atlantic convergence zone. Tropical air masses were discriminated from subtropical ones according to the higher equivalent potential temperature (?e) in the lower and mid troposphere, the higher CO mixing ratio in the mid troposphere, and the lower wind velocity and proper wind direction in the upper troposphere. During thunderstorm anvil penetrations, typically at 20?40 km horizontal scales, NOx mixing ratios were on average enhanced by 0.2?1.6 nmol mol?1. This enhancement was mainly attributed to NOx production by lightning and partly due to upward transport from the NOx-richer boundary layer. In addition, CO mixing ratios were occasionally enhanced, indicating upward transport from the boundary layer. For the first time, the composition of the anvil outflow from a large, long-lived mesoscale convective system (MCS) advected from northern Argentina and Uruguay was investigated in more detail. Over a horizontal scale of about 400 km, NOx, CO and O3 mixing ratios were significantly enhanced in these air masses in the range of 0.6?1.1, 110?140 and 60?70 nmol mol?1, respectively. Analyses from trace gas correlations and a Lagrangian particle dispersion model indicate that polluted air masses, probably from the Buenos Aires urban area and from biomass burning regions, were uplifted by the MCS. Ozone was distinctly enhanced in the aged MCS outflow, due to photochemical production and entrainment of O3-rich air masses from the upper troposphere ? lower stratosphere region. The aged MCS outflow was transported to the north, ascended and circulated, driven by the Bolivian High over the Amazon basin. In the observed case, the O3-rich MCS outflow remained over the continent and did not contribute to the South Atlantic ozone maximum

Regional lightning NOx sources during the TROCCINOX experiment

A lightning NOx (LiNOx) source has been implemented in the deep convection scheme of the Meso-NH mesoscale model following a mass-flux formalism coherent with the transport and scavenging of gases inside the convective scheme. In this approach the vertical transport of NO inside clouds is calculated by the parameterization of deep convective transport, thus eliminating the need for apriori LiNOx profiles. Once produced inside the convective column, NO molecules are redistributed by updrafts and downdrafts and detrained in the environment when the conditions are favorable. The model was applied to three particular flights during the Tropical Convection, Cirrus and Nitrogen Oxides (TROCCINOX) campaign over the tropical area around Bauru on 3-4 March 2004. The convective activity during the three flights was investigated using brightness temperature at 10.7μm observed from GOES-12 satellite. The use of a model-to-satellite approach reveals that the simulation appears rather realistic compared to the observations. The diurnal cycle of the simulated brightness temperature, CAPE, number of IC flashes, NO entrainment flux are in phase, with a succession of three marked peaks at 18:00 UTC (15:00 LT). These simulated peaks precede the observed afternoon one by about three hours. Comparison of the simulated NOx with observations along the flight tracks show that the model reproduces well the observed NOx levels when the LiNOx source is applied. The budget of entrainment, detrainment and LiNOx convective fluxes shows that the majority of the NO detrained back to the environment comes from lightning source inside the convective columns. Entrainment of NO from the environment and vertical transport from the boundary layer were not significant during the episode. The troposphere is impacted by detrainment fluxes of LiNOx from 4 km altitude to 16 km with maximum values around 14 km altitude. Detrainment fluxes vary between 75 kg(N)/s during nighttime to 400 kg(N)/s at the times of maximun convective activity. Extrapolation of the regional LiNOx source would yield a global LiNOx production around 5.7 Tg(N)/year which is within the current estimates but should not hide the overestimation of the number of flash rates by the model

Airborne observations of the Eyjafjalla volcano ash cloud over Europe during air space closure in April and May 2010

© Author(s) 2011. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 LicenseAirborne lidar and in-situ measurements of aerosols and trace gases were performed in volcanic ash plumes over Europe between Southern Germany and Iceland with the Falcon aircraft during the eruption period of the Eyjafjalla1 volcano between 19 April and 18 May 2010. Flight planning and measurement analyses were supported by a refined Meteosat ash product and trajectory model analysis. The volcanic ash plume was observed with lidar directly over the volcano and up to a distance of 2700 km downwind, and up to 120 h plume ages. Aged ash layers were between a few 100 m to 3 km deep, occurred between 1 and 7 km altitude, and were typically 100 to 300 km wide. Particles collected by impactors had diameters up to 20 μm diameter, with size and age dependent composition. Ash mass concentrations were derived from optical particle spectrometers for a particle density of 2.6 g cm-3 and various values of the refractive index (RI, real part: 1.59; 3 values for the imaginary part: 0, 0.004 and 0.008). The mass concentrations, effective diameters and related optical properties were compared with ground-based lidar observations. Theoretical considerations of particle sedimentation constrain the particle diameters to those obtained for the lower RI values. The ash mass concentration results have an uncertainty of a factor of two. The maximum ash mass concentration encountered during the 17 flights with 34 ash plume penetrations was below 1 mg m-3. The Falcon flew in ash clouds up to about 0.8 mg m-3 for a few minutes and in an ash cloud with approximately 0.2 mg -3 mean-concentration for about one hour without engine damage. The ash plumes were rather dry and correlated with considerable CO and SO2 increases and O3 decreases. To first order, ash concentration and SO2 mixing ratio in the plumes decreased by a factor of two within less than a day. In fresh plumes, the SO2 and CO concentration increases were correlated with the ash mass concentration. The ash plumes were often visible slantwise as faint dark layers, even for concentrations below 0.1 mg m-3. The large abundance of volatile Aitken mode particles suggests previous nucleation of sulfuric acid droplets. The effective diameters range between 0.2 and 3 μm with considerable surface and volume contributions from the Aitken and coarse mode aerosol, respectively. The distal ash mass flux on 2 May was of the order of 500 (240-1600) kgs -1. The volcano induced about 10 (2.5-50) Tg of distal ash mass and about 3 (0.6-23) Tg of SO2 during the whole eruption period. The results of the Falcon flights were used to support the responsible agencies in their decisions concerning air traffic in the presence of volcanic ash.Peer reviewe

ECInvestigation of NO2 Pollutions on Board of Research Aircraft (Some Results of QUANTIFY and POLARCAT Field Campaigns)

The results of investigation of NO2 pollutions on board of research aircraft Falcon (DLR, Germany) are presented. The measurements have been carried out by chemiluminescent nitrogen dioxide analyzer developed in Central Aerological Observatory (Russia). The data of NO2 distribution have been obtained during QUANTIFY (West Europe, July 2007) and POLARCAT (Greenland, July 2008) field campaigns. NO2 measurements over Greenland during POLARCAT field campaign have been carried out using ACCENT support. Different sources of nitrogen oxides are investigated. Some aspects of nitrogen dioxide distribution and transport are considered. Chemical transformation of nitrogen oxides inside ship plumes is observed and analyzed

Hata-yı mader

Ali Remzi'nin Mütalaa'da tefrika edilen Hata-yı Mader adlı roman

In-situ observations of young contrails – overview and selected results from the CONCERT campaign

Lineshaped contrails were detected with the research aircraft Falcon during the CONCERT – CONtrail and Cirrus ExpeRimenT – campaign in October/November 2008. The Falcon was equipped with a set of instruments to measure the particle size distribution, shape, extinction and chemical composition as well as trace gas mixing ratios of sulfur dioxide (SO<sub>2</sub>), reactive nitrogen and halogen species (NO, NO<sub>y</sub>, HNO<sub>3</sub>, HONO, HCl), ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) and carbon monoxide (CO). During 12 mission flights over Europe, numerous contrails, cirrus clouds and a volcanic aerosol layer were probed at altitudes between 8.5 and 11.6 km and at temperatures above 213 K. 22 contrails from 11 different aircraft were observed near and below ice saturation. The observed NO mixing ratios, ice crystal and soot number densities are compared to a process based contrail model. On 19 November 2008 the contrail from a CRJ-2 aircraft was penetrated in 10.1 km altitude at a temperature of 221 K. The contrail had mean ice crystal number densities of 125 cm<sup>−3</sup> with effective radii <i>r</i><sub>eff</sub> of 2.6 μm. The presence of particles with <i>r</i>>50 μm in the less than 2 min old contrail suggests that natural cirrus crystals were entrained in the contrail. Mean HONO/NO (HONO/NO<sub>y</sub>) ratios of 0.037 (0.024) and the fuel sulfur conversion efficiency to H<sub>2</sub>SO<sub>4</sub> (ε<sub><i>S</i>↓</sub>) of 2.9 % observed in the CRJ-2 contrail are in the range of previous measurements in the gaseous aircraft exhaust. On 31 October 2010 aviation NO emissions could have contributed by more than 40% to the regional scale NO levels in the mid-latitude lowest stratosphere. The CONCERT observations help to better quantify the climate impact from contrails and will be used to investigate the chemical processing of trace gases on contrails