Towards a Global Climatology of OH Sensitivity
Abstract
The hydroxyl radical (OH) is the dominant global tropospheric oxidant and its variability influences the abundances and trends of many species important for the analysis of tropospheric composition, such as air pollutants, greenhouse gases, and near-term climate forcers. Previous studies have identified sensitivities of global mean OH to various influences, e.g. trace gas variability, emissions, water vapor, photolysis rates, etc. This work aims to assemble a global 3D seasonal climatology of OH sensitivity to factors that determine its abundance and variability within broad atmospheric regions (e.g. polluted, remote, aerosol influenced). Using output from the NASA MERRA-2 GMI full chemistry replay simulation (driven by MERRA-2 meteorology and available at 50km horizontal resolution from 1980-2016), we show the relationships between OH and factors that can be constrained by satellite and suborbital observations (e.g. water vapor, NO2, O3, CO) along with those that cannot be observed (e.g. photolysis and reaction rates) but are useful for interpretation of these relationships. This climatology of OH sensitivities will be used to prioritize observations best expected to constrain OH in hopes of informing a future observing strategy.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.A21D..08F
- Keywords:
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- 0317 Chemical kinetic and photochemical properties;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0345 Pollution: urban and regional;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTUREDE: 0368 Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE