NO(y) partitioning from measurements of nitrogen and hydrogen radicals in the upper troposphere

Abstract

Recent studies using NO, NO(y), OH and HO2 (HO(X)) observations have postulated acetone and convection of peroxides as significant sources of HO(X) in the upper troposphere (UT). This work focuses on the effect these additional HO(X) sources have on the modeled NO(y) partitioning and comparisons of the modeled NO(x)/NO(y) ratio to observations. The measured NO(x)/NO(y) ratio is usually much higher than predicted regardless of the presence of acetone in the model. The exception occurs for air parcels having low NO(y) and O3 values. For these air parcels the measured NO(x)/NO(y) ratio is much lower than the calculated ratio unless acetone is included in the model. In all cases acetone increases the fraction of NO(y) that is peroxy acetyl nitrate (PAN) from typical values of much less than 0.1 to values as high as 0.35. Including acetone also reduces the scatter in a comparison between modeled and observed NO(x)/NO(y) ratios.