Space‐based constraints on the production of nitric oxide by lightning

Abstract

[1] We interpret observations of trace-gases from three satellite platforms to provide topdown constraints on the production of NO by lightning. The space-based observations are tropospheric NO 2 columns from SCIAMACHY, tropospheric O 3 columns from OMI and MLS, and upper tropospheric HNO 3 from ACE-FTS. A global chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem) is used to identify locations and time periods in which lightning would be expected to dominate the trace gas observations. The satellite observations are sampled at those locations and time periods. All three observations exhibit a maximum in the tropical Atlantic region and a minimum in the tropical Pacific. This wave-1 pattern is driven by injection of lightning NO into the upper troposphere over the tropical continents, followed by photochemical production of NO 2 , HNO 3 , and O 3 during transport. Lightning produces a broad enhancement over the tropical Atlantic

Tropospheric emissions: Monitoring of pollution (TEMPO)

“…Should even higher temporal resolution over selected regions be useful, that may be accomplished by special observations. It has also been noted by Martin et al [73] that improved constraints on soil NO x emissions may also improve estimates of lightning NO x emissions.…”

“…Interpretation of satellite measurements of tropospheric NO 2 and O 3 , and upper tropospheric HNO 3 lead to an overall estimate of 6 72Tg N y À 1 from lightning [73]. TEMPO measurements, including tropospheric NO 2 and O 3 , can be made for time periods and longitudinal bands selected to coincide with large thunderstorm activity, including outflow regions, with fairly short notice.…”

Tropical tropospheric ozone column retrieval for GOME-2

“…The enhanced tropospheric ozone over the southern tropical Atlantic is mainly a result of dynamical processes, with permanent radiative subsidence over the quasi-stationary South Atlantic anticyclone area, allowing ozone production during downward transport. The Atlantic ozone maximum in September-November can be explained by a combination of lightning and soil NO x sources, a maximum intensity of fires over Africa and South America, as well as a maximum in long-range transport Martin et al, 2007;Ziemke et al, 2009b). The low ozone values over the tropical Pacific can largely be attributed to convective lifting of low amounts of ozone clean air from the lower troposphere (including the pollution-free marine boundary) into the middle and upper troposphere (e.g.…”

Estimating North American background ozone in U.S. surface air with two independent global models: Variability, uncertainties, and recommendations

“…(Kalnay et al, 1996). The nudging timescale is inversely proportional to pressure (Lin et al, 2012b) Assimilated from NASA GEOS-5 Scaled to match a top-down constraint of 6 Tg N a -1 (Martin et al, 2007) and spatially redistributed based on the LIS/OTD flash climatology (Murray et al, 2012) and includes a higher yield (500 mol N flash -1 at northern mid-latitudes and 125 mol N flash -1 elsewhere (Hudman et al, 2007) Anthropogenic emissions ACCMIP with annual interpolation after 2000 to RCP4.5 2010 value (Lamarque et al, 2011) EDGAR (Olivier and Berdowski, 2001) (Guenther et al, 2006), implemented as described by Emmons et al (2010) and Rasmussen et al (2012) MEGAN 2.0 (Guenther et al, 2006) Biomass burning emissions As for anthropogenic emissions but distributed vertically as recommended for AeroCom (Dentener et al, 2006) GFEDv2 year-specific monthly fires , emitted at surface …”