Analysis of boundary layer methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide measurements over California during the ARCTAS/CARB flights

High precision, 1-sec resolution, in situ measurements of methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and carbon monoxide (CO) were made on board the NASA DC-8 aircraft during the summer 2008 Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) deployments. The first 4 CARB flights on June 18, 20, 22 and 24 and the ARCTAS transit flights (between Palmdale, CA and Cold Lake, Alberta on June 26 and July 13) include many hours of low-level (~1000 ft AGL) boundary layer sampling over varied geographical regions (e.g. Los Angeles and its shipping lanes, the Central Valley, and croplands near Sacramento) before and during the California wildfires. We investigate highly-correlated time series of CH4, N2O, CO2 and CO to characterize emissions from a variety of sources including urban centers, agricultural lands, oil fields, rice paddies, feed lots, wooded regions, wildfire smoke plumes, etc.