Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2016;9(7):3063-3093.
doi: 10.5194/amt-9-3063-2016. Epub 2016 Jul 18.

Instrumentation and Measurement Strategy for the NOAA SENEX Aircraft Campaign as Part of the Southeast Atmosphere Study 2013

C Warneke  1   2 , M Trainer  2 , J A de Gouw  1   2 , D D Parrish  1   2 , D W Fahey  2 , A R Ravishankara  2 , A M Middlebrook  2 , C A Brock  2 , J M Roberts  2 , S S Brown  2 , J A Neuman  1   2 , B M Lerner  1   2 , D Lack  1   2 , D Law  1   2 , G Hübler  1   2 , I Pollack  1   2 , S Sjostedt  1   2 , T B Ryerson  2 , J B Gilman  1   2 , J Liao  1   2 , J Holloway  1   2 , J Peischl  1   2 , J B Nowak  1   2 , K Aikin  1   2 , K-E Min  1   2 , R A Washenfelder  1   2 , M G Graus  1   2 , M Richardson  1   2 , M Z Markovic  1   2 , N L Wagner  1   2 , A Welti  1   2 , P R Veres  1   2 , P Edwards  1   2 , J P Schwarz  2 , T Gordon  1   2 , W P Dube  1   2 , S McKeen  1   2 , J Brioude  1   2 , R Ahmadov  1   2 , A Bougiatioti  3 , J J Lin  3 , A Nenes  3   4   5 , G M Wolfe  6   7 , T F Hanisco  6 , B H Lee  8 , F D Lopez-Hilfiker  8 , J A Thornton  8 , F N Keutsch  9 , J Kaiser  9 , J Mao  10   11 , C Hatch  12
Affiliations

Instrumentation and Measurement Strategy for the NOAA SENEX Aircraft Campaign as Part of the Southeast Atmosphere Study 2013

C Warneke et al. Atmos Meas Tech. 2016.

Abstract

Natural emissions of ozone-and-aerosol-precursor gases such as isoprene and monoterpenes are high in the southeast of the US. In addition, anthropogenic emissions are significant in the Southeast US and summertime photochemistry is rapid. The NOAA-led SENEX (Southeast Nexus) aircraft campaign was one of the major components of the Southeast Atmosphere Study (SAS) and was focused on studying the interactions between biogenic and anthropogenic emissions to form secondary pollutants. During SENEX, the NOAA WP-3D aircraft conducted 20 research flights between 27 May and 10 July 2013 based out of Smyrna, TN. Here we describe the experimental approach, the science goals and early results of the NOAA SENEX campaign. The aircraft, its capabilities and standard measurements are described. The instrument payload is summarized including detection limits, accuracy, precision and time resolutions for all gas-and-aerosol phase instruments. The inter-comparisons of compounds measured with multiple instruments on the NOAA WP-3D are presented and were all within the stated uncertainties, except two of the three NO2 measurements. The SENEX flights included day- and nighttime flights in the Southeast as well as flights over areas with intense shale gas extraction (Marcellus, Fayetteville and Haynesville shale). We present one example flight on 16 June 2013, which was a daytime flight over the Atlanta region, where several crosswind transects of plumes from the city and nearby point sources, such as power plants, paper mills and landfills, were flown. The area around Atlanta has large biogenic isoprene emissions, which provided an excellent case for studying the interactions between biogenic and anthropogenic emissions. In this example flight, chemistry in and outside the Atlanta plumes was observed for several hours after emission. The analysis of this flight showcases the strategies implemented to answer some of the main SENEX science questions.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure A1
Figure A1
Instrument setup for measuring CCN spectra during SENEX.
Figure A2
Figure A2
The eight separate ringdown cells in the CRD instrument
Figure A3
Figure A3
Schematic diagram of the SP2 photometer showing the basic optics and laser-induced incandescence and scattering detectors.
Figure A4
Figure A4
Schematic drawing of the PTR-MS instrument and the inlet.
Figure A5
Figure A5
Simplified schematic of the broadband CES instrument
Figure A6
Figure A6
Schematics of the nitrogen oxide CRDS instrument.
Figure 1
Figure 1
NOAA WP-3D aircraft picture, payload and layout. The photo was taken during the inter-comparison flight with the NCAR C-130 by Lynne Gratz.
Figure 2
Figure 2
NOAA WP-3D flight tracks for daytime, nighttime and shale gas flights during SENEX. The marker size for the power plants is the annual gross load, for the paper mills the capacity, for the bio refineries the biofuel production, for the coal mines the methane emissions, and for the land fills the methane emissions.
Figure 3
Figure 3
NO2 inter-comparison between P-CL, CRDS and ACES instruments and ozone inter-comparison between P-CL and CRDS.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Inter-comparison between PTR-MS and iWAS/GCMS.
Figure 5
Figure 5
HCOOH inter-comparison between the HNO3-CIMS and the UW HR-ToF-CIMS as a time series for a selected flight and a scatter plot. The color code in the scatter plot indicates all the individual flights. The black line is a fit using all the data the grey lines fits for individual flights with the highest or lowest slope, respectively.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Inter-comparison between the UW HR-ToF-CIMS of N2O5 with CRDS and ClNO2 with the PAN-CIMS as time series and scatter plots for the nighttime flight on 3 July 2013.
Figure 7
Figure 7
NOy and NOz (=NOy−NOx) budgets for the NOAA WP-3D flight on 16 June 2013 with and without aerosol nitrate.
Figure 8
Figure 8
The aerosol volume derived from the chemical composition data (AMS and SP2) was compared to the volume from the size distribution data (NMASS and UHSAS). (a) The correlation for the flight on 16 June 2013 color-coded by the density. (b) The slopes for all the flights color-coded by the respective correlation coefficient determined as shown in (a).
Figure 9
Figure 9
The flight track of the NOAA WP-3D on June 16, 2013 over Atlanta, GA color coded with NOy in the top panel and with isoprene on the bottom panel. The underlying maps show the point source emissions (power plants, paper mills and land fills) in the top panel and the isoprene emissions potential in the bottom panel.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Time series of two transects during the 16 June 2013 flight downwind of a landfill and two paper mills.
Figure 11
Figure 11
The track of a flight on 6 July 1999 over Atlanta during the SOS99 campaign color-coded with the NOy mixing ratio. Time series of the 16 June 2013 and the 6 July 1999 flights for NOy and CO show that the mixing ratios over Atlanta have decreased significantly over the past 14 years.
Figure 12
Figure 12
The track from the 22 June 2013 flight over Atlanta color-coded with the CO2 mixing ratio. Transects downwind of the coal fired Bowen and the natural gas combined cycle McDonough power plants.
Figure 13
Figure 13
FLEXPART model results: time series of NOy with 48 hours of accumulation time, the flight track color-coded by modeled NOy and the surface residence time for a point on the last transect downwind of the Harllee Branch power plant.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Allan JD, Delia AE, Coe H, Bower KN, Alfarra MR, Jimenez JL, Middlebrook AM, Drewnick F, Onasch TB, Canagaratna MR, Jayne JT, Worsnop DR. A generalised method for the extraction of chemically resolved mass spectra from Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer data. J Aerosol Sci. 2004;35:909–922.
    1. Allan JD, Jimenez JL, Williams PI, Alfarra MR, Bower KN, Jayne JT, Coe H, Worsnop DR. Quantitative sampling using an Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer 1. Techniques of data interpretation and error analysis. J Geophys Res. 2003;108:4090.
    1. Andreae MO, Merlet P. Emission of trace gases and aerosols from biomass burning. Global Biogeochemical Cycles. 2001;15:955–966.
    1. Angevine WM, Brioude J, McKeen S, Holloway JS. Uncertainty in Lagrangian pollutant transport simulations due to meteorological uncertainty from a mesoscale WRF ensemble. Geosci Model Dev. 2014;7:2817–2829.
    1. Bahreini R, Dunlea EJ, Matthew BM, Simons C, Docherty KS, DeCarlo PF, Jimenez JL, Brock CA, Middlebrook AM. Design and operation of a pressure-controlled inlet for airborne sampling with an aerodynamic aerosol lens. Aerosol Sci Technol. 2008;42:465–471.

LinkOut - more resources