Search results for "ozone"
showing 10 items of 300 documents
Reaction pathways of glucose oxidation by ozone under acidic conditions.
2009
The ozonation of d-glucose-1-(13)C, 2-(13)C, and 6-(13)C was carried out at pH 2.5 in a semi-batch reactor at room temperature. The products present in the liquid phase were analyzed by GC-MS, HPAEC-PAD, and (13)C NMR spectroscopy. Common oxidation products of glucose have also been submitted to identical ozonation conditions. For the first time, a pentaric acid was identified and its formation quantitatively correlated to the loss of C-6 of glucose in the form of carbon dioxide. Potential mechanisms for the formation of this pentaric acid are discussed. The well-accepted pathway involving the anomeric position in glucose, gluconic acid, arabinose, and carbon dioxide is reinvestigated. The …
Unbiased sensitivity analysis and pruning techniques in neural networks for surface ozone modelling
2005
Abstract This paper presents the use of artificial neural networks (ANNs) for surface ozone modelling. Due to the usual non-linear nature of problems in ecology, the use of ANNs has proven to be a common practice in this field. Nevertheless, few efforts have been made to acquire knowledge about the problems by analysing the useful, but often complex, input–output mapping performed by these models. In fact, researchers are not only interested in accurate methods but also in understandable models. In the present paper, we propose a methodology to extract the governing rules of trained ANN which, in turn, yields simplified models by using unbiased sensitivity and pruning techniques. Our propos…
Nitric Acid Trihydrate (NAT) formation at low NAT supersaturation in Polar Stratospheric Clouds (PSCs)
2005
International audience; A PSC was detected on 6 February 2003 in the Arctic stratosphere by in-situ measurements onboard the high-altitude research aircraft Geophysica. Low number densities (~10-4cm-3) of small nitric acid (HNO3) containing particles (dTNAT, these NAT particles have the potential to grow further and to remove HNO3 from the stratosphere, thereby enhancing polar ozone loss. Interestingly, the NAT particles formed in less than a day at temperatures just slightly below TNAT (T>TNAT-3.1K). This unique measurement of PSC formation at extremely low NAT saturation ratios (SNAT?10) constrains current NAT nucleation theories. We suggest, that the NAT particles have formed heterogeneo…
Advances in understanding mineral dust and boundary layer processes over the Sahara from Fennec aircraft observations
2015
Abstract. The Fennec climate programme aims to improve understanding of the Saharan climate system through a synergy of observations and modelling. We present a description of the Fennec airborne observations during 2011 and 2012 over the remote Sahara (Mauritania and Mali) and the advances in the understanding of mineral dust and boundary layer processes they have provided. Aircraft instrumentation aboard the UK FAAM BAe146 and French SAFIRE (Service des Avions Français Instrumentés pour la Recherche en Environnement) Falcon 20 is described, with specific focus on instrumentation specially developed for and relevant to Saharan meteorology and dust. Flight locations, aims and associated met…
Optimal use of the Prede POM sky radiometer for aerosol, water vapor, and ozone retrievals
2021
The Prede POM sky radiometer is a filter radiometer deployed worldwide in the SKYNET international network. A new method, called Skyrad pack MRI version 2 (MRI v2), is presented here to retrieve aerosol properties (size distribution, real and imaginary parts of the refractive index, single-scattering albedo, asymmetry factor, lidar ratio, and linear depolarization ratio), water vapor, and ozone column concentrations from the sky radiometer measurements. MRI v2 overcomes two limitations of previous methods (Skyrad pack versions 4.2 and 5, MRI version 1). One is the use of all the wavelengths of 315, 340, 380, 400, 500, 675, 870, 940, 1020, 1627, and 2200 nm if available from the sky radiomet…
The Effect of the Covid-19 Lockdown on Air Quality in Three Italian Medium-Sized Cities
2020
Despite the societal and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown measures put in place by the Italian government provided an unprecedented opportunity to increase our knowledge of the effect transportation and industry-related emissions have on the air quality in our cities. This study assessed the effect of reduced emissions during the lockdown period, due to COVID-19, on air quality in three Italian cities, Florence, Pisa, and Lucca. For this study, we compared the concentration of particulate matter PM10, PM2.5, NO2, and O3 measured during the lockdown period, with values obtained in the same period of 2019. Our results show no evidence of a direct relationship between th…
A machine learning examination of hydroxyl radical differences among model simulations for CCMI-1
2020
The hydroxyl radical (OH) plays critical roles within the troposphere, such as determining the lifetime of methane (CH4), yet is challenging to model due to its fast cycling and dependence on a multitude of sources and sinks. As a result, the reasons for variations in OH and the resulting methane lifetime (τCH4), both between models and in time, are difficult to diagnose. We apply a neural network (NN) approach to address this issue within a group of models that participated in the Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative (CCMI). Analysis of the historical specified dynamics simulations performed for CCMI indicates that the primary drivers of τCH4 differences among 10 models are the flux of UV li…
Analysis of winter dust activity off the coast of West Africa using a new 24-year over-water advanced very high resolution radiometer satellite dust …
2006
A 24-year (1982-2005) winter daytime advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) data set has been processed utilizing a new over-water dust detection algorithm. The dust data are for the oceanic regions surrounding West Africa and provide a long-term remotely sensed continuous record of dustiness in the region. These AVHRR dust observations are comparable to dust records produced via the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer and Meteosat instruments. Strong positive correlations between the wintertime Jones North Atlantic Oscillation index and this dust record are observed across the entire oceanic region, corroborating earlier studies on the relationship between the two. Also consistent w…
Nitric acid trihydrate nucleation and denitrification in the Arctic stratosphere
2014
Abstract. Nitric acid trihydrate (NAT) particles in the polar stratosphere have been shown to be responsible for vertical redistribution of reactive nitrogen (NOy). Recent observations by Cloud–Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) aboard the CALIPSO satellite have been explained in terms of heterogeneous nucleation of NAT on foreign nuclei, revealing this to be an important formation pathway for the NAT particles. In state of the art global- or regional-scale models, heterogeneous NAT nucleation is currently simulated in a very coarse manner using a constant, saturation-independent nucleation rate. Here we present first simulations for the Arctic winter 2009/2010 applying a n…
In search of traceability: two decades of calibrated Brewer UV measurements in Sodankylä and Jokioinen
2016
Abstract. The two Brewer spectrophotometers of the Finnish Meteorological Institute at Jokioinen and Sodankylä have been operated according to the highest levels of the WMO∕GAW (World Meteorological Organization∕Global Atmosphere Watch) recommendations with rigorous quality control and quality assurance. The calibration of the instruments is based on annual recalibrations of primary standard lamps in the VTT MIKES Metrology National Standards Laboratory in Finland and an exhaustive measurement program with measurements of standard and working lamps in the on-site optical laboratories. Over the years, the maintenance of the calibration has produced data sets of approximately 2000 lamp scans …