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Comparison of Airborne Reactive Nitrogen Measurements During WINTER
Author(s) -
Sparks Tamara L.,
Ebben Carlena J.,
Wooldridge Paul J.,
LopezHilfiker Felipe D.,
Lee Ben H.,
Thornton Joel A.,
McDuffie Erin E.,
Fibiger Dorothy L.,
Brown Steven S.,
Montzka Denise D.,
Weinheimer Andrew J.,
Schroder Jason C.,
CampuzanoJost Pedro,
Jimenez Jose L.,
Cohen Ronald C.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: atmospheres
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2169-8996
pISSN - 2169-897X
DOI - 10.1029/2019jd030700
Subject(s) - cavity ring down spectroscopy , aerosol , chemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , mass spectrometry , nitrogen , dissociation (chemistry) , reactive nitrogen , iodide , chemiluminescence , nitrogen dioxide , spectroscopy , atmospheric sciences , environmental chemistry , physics , organic chemistry , chromatography , quantum mechanics , geology
We present a comparison of instruments measuring nitrogen oxide species from an aircraft during the 2015 Wintertime INvestigation of Transport, Emissions, and Reactivity (WINTER) campaign over the northeast United States. Instrument techniques compared here include chemiluminescence (CL), thermal dissociation laser‐induced fluorescence (TD‐LIF), cavity ring‐down spectroscopy (CRDS), high‐resolution time of flight, iodide‐adduct chemical ionization mass spectrometry (I ‐ CIMS), and aerosol mass spectrometry. Species investigated include NO 2 , NO, total nitrogen oxides (NO y ), N 2 O 5 , ClNO 2 , and HNO 3 . Particulate‐phase nitrate is also included for comparisons of HNO 3 and NO y . Instruments generally agreed within reported uncertainties, with individual flights sometimes showing much better agreement than the data set taken as a whole, due to flight‐to‐flight slope changes. NO measured by CRDS and CL showed an average relative slope of 1.16 ± 0.01 across all flights, which is outside of combined uncertainties. The source of the error was not identified. For NO 2 measured by CRDS and TD‐LIF the average was 1.02 ± 0.00; for NO y measured by CRDS and CL the average was 1.01 ± 0.00; and for N 2 O 5 measured by CRDS and I ‐ CIMS the average was 0.89 ± 0.01. NO y budget closure to within 20% is demonstrated. We observe nonlinearity in NO 2 and NO y correlations at concentrations above ~30 ppbv that may be related to the NO discrepancy noted above. For ClNO 2 there were significant differences between I ‐ CIMS and TD‐LIF, potentially due in part to the temperature used for thermal dissociation. Although the fraction of particulate nitrate measured by the TD‐LIF is not well characterized, it improves comparisons to include particulate measurements.