In Situ Airborne CH2O Measurements Over the Baltimore/Washington DC Metropolitan Region during the DISCOVER-AQ Study

The first deployment for NASA's Earth Venture campaign DISCOVER-AQ (Deriving Information on Surface conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality) took place over the Baltimore/Washington DC region during July of 2011. Fast in situ measurements of CH2O were acquired during this study onboard the NASA WP3 aircraft employing a mid-infrared difference frequency generation absorption spectrometer. High resolution, sensitive, airborne measurements from 0.3-km above the surface to ~ 5km were repetitively acquired over 6 different ground monitoring sites at various times of the day. The observations revealed a high degree of variability from site to site, over the course of a day, and between days. In addition, CH2O was highly correlated with water vapor in the boundary layer. This presentation will discuss these observations as well as the derived vertical columns and correlations with CO, and OVOC species.