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A missing sink for gas-phase glyoxal in Mexico City: Formation of secondary organic aerosol
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology, National Academies, Washington, D. C., USA
Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
MCE2, La Jolla, California, USA
Centro de Investigaciones Químicas, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA
The sources of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) are highly uncertain. Direct measurements of gas-phase glyoxal in Mexico City are compared to experimentally constrained model predictions. Observed glyoxal concentrations are found significantly below those predicted. Additional glyoxal sources are likely and would increase these differences; an additional glyoxal sink must be operative. The model-measurement differences are fully resolved by a sink parameterized from aerosol parameters as either (1) irreversible uptake to aerosol surface area (uptake coefficient γ ≈ 0.0037); reversible partitioning to (2) aerosol liquid water (effective Henry's law coefficient H eff ≈ 4 × 109 M atm−1), or (3) the oxygenated organic aerosol phase (activity coefficient ζ ≈ 6 × 10−9); (4) a combination of the above. The missing sink has the potential to determine 70–95% of the atmospheric lifetime of glyoxal. The glyoxal imbalance corresponds to several μg m−3 of equivalent SOA mass, and can explain at least 15% of the SOA formation in Mexico City.
Received 21 May 2007; accepted 17 August 2007; published 9 October 2007.
Citation: (2007), A missing sink for gas-phase glyoxal in Mexico City: Formation of secondary organic aerosol, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L19807, doi:10.1029/2007GL030752.
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