Publikationsdatum:
2018-01-06
Beschreibung:
Nitric oxide (NO) is emitted in large quantities from coal-burning power plants. During the day, the plumes from these sources are efficiently mixed into the boundary layer, while at night, they may remain concentrated due to limited vertical mixing during which they undergo horizontal fanning. At night, the degree to which NO is converted to HNO 3 and, therefore, unable to participate in next-day ozone (O 3 ) formation depends on the mixing rate of the plume, the composition of power plant emissions and the composition of the background atmosphere. In this study, we use observed plume intercepts from the Wintertime INvestigation of Transport, Emissions and Reactivity (WINTER) campaign to test sensitivity of overnight NO x removal to the N 2 O 5 loss rate constant, plume mixing rate, background O 3 , and background levels of volatile organic compounds using a 2-D box model of power plant plume transport and chemistry. The factor that exerted the greatest control over NO x removal was the loss rate constant of N 2 O 5 . At the lowest observed N 2 O 5 loss rate constant, no other combination of conditions converts more than 10% of the initial NO x to HNO 3 . The other factors did not influence NO x removal to the same degree.
Print ISSN:
0148-0227
Thema:
Geologie und Paläontologie
,
Physik
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