Publication Date:
2011-08-20
Description:
Hydroxyl radicals (OH) are a key species in atmospheric photochemistry. In the lower atmosphere, up to ~30% of the primary OH radical production is attributed to the photolysis of nitrous acid (HONO), and field observations suggest a large missing source of HONO. We show that soil nitrite can release HONO and explain the reported strength and diurnal variation of the missing source. Fertilized soils with low pH appear to be particularly strong sources of HONO and OH. Thus, agricultural activities and land-use changes may strongly influence the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere. Because of the widespread occurrence of nitrite-producing microbes, the release of HONO from soil may also be important in natural environments, including forests and boreal regions.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Su, Hang -- Cheng, Yafang -- Oswald, Robert -- Behrendt, Thomas -- Trebs, Ivonne -- Meixner, Franz X -- Andreae, Meinrat O -- Cheng, Peng -- Zhang, Yuanhang -- Poschl, Ulrich -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2011 Sep 16;333(6049):1616-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1207687. Epub 2011 Aug 18.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Biogeochemistry Department, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz 55020, Germany. h.su@mpic.de〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21852453" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Agriculture
;
Atmosphere/*chemistry
;
Circadian Rhythm
;
Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
;
Hydroxyl Radical/*analysis/chemistry
;
Nitrites/*chemistry/*metabolism
;
Nitrous Acid/*analysis/chemistry
;
Oxidation-Reduction
;
Photolysis
;
Soil/*chemistry
;
*Soil Microbiology
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
