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Heterogeneous chemistry involving methanol in tropospheric clouds
Author(s) -
Tabazadeh A.,
Yokelson R. J.,
Singh H. B.,
Hobbs P. V.,
Crawford J. H.,
Iraci L. T.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2003gl018775
Subject(s) - methanol , troposphere , formaldehyde , smoke , atmospheric chemistry , environmental science , plume , oxidizing agent , atmospheric sciences , biomass burning , environmental chemistry , meteorology , chemistry , aerosol , geology , ozone , organic chemistry , physics
In this report we analyze airborne measurements to suggest that methanol in biomass burning smoke is lost heterogeneously in clouds. When a smoke plume intersected a cumulus cloud during the SAFARI 2000 field project, the observed methanol gas phase concentration rapidly declined. Current understanding of gas and aqueous phase chemistry cannot explain the loss of methanol documented by these measurements. Two plausible heterogeneous reactions are proposed to explain the observed simultaneous loss and production of methanol and formaldehyde, respectively. If the rapid heterogeneous processing of methanol, seen in a cloud impacted by smoke, occurs in more pristine clouds, it could affect the oxidizing capacity of the troposphere on a global scale.