Identification

Title

Measurements of CH₃O₂NO₂ in the upper troposphere

Abstract

Methyl peroxy nitrate (CH₃O₂NO₂) is a non-acyl peroxy nitrate that is important for photochemistry at low temperatures characteristic of the upper troposphere. We report the first measurements of CH₃O₂NO₂, which we achieved through a new aircraft inlet configuration, combined with thermal-dissociation laser-induced fluorescence (TD-LIF) detection of NO₂, and describe the accuracy, specificity, and interferences to CH₃O₂NO₂ measurements. CH₃O₂NO₂ is predicted to be a ubiquitous interference to upper-tropospheric NO₂ measurements. We describe an experimental strategy for obtaining NO₂ observations free of the CH₃O₂NO₂ interference. Using these new methods, we made observations during two recent aircraft campaigns: the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC-3) and the Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds, and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) experiments. The CH₃O₂NO₂ measurements we report have a detection limit (S/N = 2) of 15 pptv at 1 min averaging on a background of 200 pptv NO₂ and an accuracy of ±40%. Observations are used to constrain the interference of pernitric acid (HO₂NO₂) to the CH₃O₂NO₂ measurements, as HO₂NO₂ partially decomposes (~11%) along with CH₃O₂NO₂ in the heated CH₃O₂NO₂ channel used to detect CH₃O₂NO₂.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7pn96s3

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

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code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

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geoscientificInformation

Keywords

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Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

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reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

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date type

publication

effective date

2015-02-27T00:00:00Z

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Copyright Author(s) 2015. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-12-26T03:16:05.827840

Metadata language

eng; USA