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Monthly Patterns of Ammonia Over the Contiguous United States at 2‐km Resolution
Author(s) -
Wang Rui,
Guo Xuehui,
Pan Da,
Kelly James T.,
Bash Jesse O.,
Sun Kang,
Paulot Fabien,
Clarisse Lieven,
Van Damme Martin,
Whitburn Simon,
Coheur PierreFrançois,
Clerbaux Cathy,
Zondlo Mark A.
Publication year - 2021
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 - 10.1029/2020gl090579
Subject(s) - environmental science , percentile , depth sounding , atmospheric sciences , seasonality , climatology , geography , geology , cartography , statistics , mathematics
Monthly, high‐resolution (∼2 km) ammonia (NH 3 ) column maps from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) were developed across the contiguous United States and adjacent areas. Ammonia hotspots (95th percentile of the column distribution) were highly localized with a characteristic length scale of 12 km and median area of 152 km 2 . Five seasonality clusters were identified with k‐means++ clustering. The Midwest and eastern United States had a broad, spring maximum of NH 3 (67% of hotspots in this cluster). The western United States, in contrast, showed a narrower midsummer peak (32% of hotspots). IASI spatiotemporal clustering was consistent with those from the Ammonia Monitoring Network. CMAQ and GFDL‐AM3 modeled NH 3 columns have some success replicating the seasonal patterns but did not capture the regional differences. The high spatial‐resolution monthly NH 3 maps serve as a constraint for model simulations and as a guide for the placement of future, ground‐based network sites.