Identification

Title

Influence of fair-weather cumulus clouds on isoprene chemistry

Abstract

Fair-weather cumulus clouds are not resolved in regional- and global-scale atmospheric chemistry models because their horizontal extent is less than the horizontal resolution of the model. A Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) model, with finer grid resolution, can resolve the energy containing turbulent eddies and fair-weather cumulus clouds. Isoprene, which is mainly emitted from deciduous forests and plays a significant role in producing ozone, has a chemical lifetime similar to the boundary layer turbulence turnover time, indicating that turbulent transport, cloud processes, and chemistry are all potentially important for the prediction of ambient isoprene concentrations. The LES model coupled with chemistry developed in this study is an ideal tool to examine the influence of fair-weather cumulus clouds on isoprene chemistry. With a LES model that includes a moderately complex gas-phase chemical mechanism of isoprene oxidation, we find enhancement of isoprene, methacrolein, and methylvinyl ketone in the cloud layer while changes in these chemical species' mixing ratios in the subcloud layer relative to the cloud-free case vary depending on the chemical lifetimes. We demonstrate that nitrogen oxides put into the system can modulate the chemical lifetimes of isoprene and related chemical species, which in turn changes the vertical distribution of the chemical species. For high NOx conditions, ozone in the subcloud layer for the cloudy case is ~5 ppbv lower than that for the cloud-free case, suggesting potential positive ozone bias in large-scale models that do not include fair-weather cumulus cloud processes.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7bg2pnm

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

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Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-05-22T00:00:00Z

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