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The implications of CO production in electrical discharges
Author(s) -
Chameides W. L.
Publication year - 1979
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/gl006i004p00287
Subject(s) - yield (engineering) , lightning (connector) , atmosphere (unit) , atmospheric sciences , environmental science , limit (mathematics) , meteorology , chemistry , physics , thermodynamics , mathematics , power (physics) , mathematical analysis
The high temperature chemistry of the N‐O‐H‐C system has been studied to determine the production of NO and CO by atmospheric lightning. The yield of NO is found to be equivalent to results obtained for a pure N 2 /O 2 atmosphere. The CO yield is highly dependent upon the detailed cooling processes within the discharge and thus an experiment designed to measure the CO source in discharges could yield useful insights into the discharge itself. An upper limit of 3.5×10 11 g CO yr −1 is estimated for the global CO source from lightning.