Measurements of peroxides in the atmosphere and their relevance to the understanding of global tropospheric chemistry, Faraday Discuss

• Main Authors: S. A. Penkett, C. E. Reeves, D. Mckennaf, P. Hignett
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1995
• Subjects: Faraday; Hercules; Pacific; North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1027.1784; http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/1995/fd/fd9950000155/

Peroxides are produced as termination products in atmospheric chain reac-tions involving peroxy radicals, both organic and inorganic. They are the principal sink for radicals produced in the troposphere from the photolysis of ozone in the presence of water vapour and as such are excellent indicators of the extent of free radical chemistry taking place at any given location. Their measurement is relatively simple and data on the concentration of peroxides in the atmosphere with respect to time and space can be collected easily and extensively. New data on peroxide measurements collected at different parts of the atmosphere, principally by the Meteorological Ofice C- 130 Hercules air-craft are presented. They indicate that the extent of hydroxyl radical chem-istry during the summer is controlled mostly by the water vapour content of the atmosphere. Both negative and positive correlations are observed between ozone and peroxide concentrations in vertical profiles over the North Atlantic Ocean and the equatorial Pacific. The negative correlations