Effect of changing NOx lifetime on the seasonality and long-term trends of satellite-observed tropospheric NO2 columns over China

Shah, Viral; Jacob, Daniel J.; Li, Ke; Silvern, Rachel F.; Zhai, Shixian; Liu, Mengyao; Lin, Jintai; Zhang, Qiang

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1483-2020

Articles | Volume 20, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1483-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-1483-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 20, issue 3

Research article

|

07 Feb 2020

Research article |

| 07 Feb 2020

Effect of changing NO_x lifetime on the seasonality and long-term trends of satellite-observed tropospheric NO₂ columns over China

Viral Shah, Daniel J. Jacob, Ke Li, Rachel F. Silvern, Shixian Zhai, Mengyao Liu, Jintai Lin, and Qiang Zhang

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Final revised paper (published on 07 Feb 2020)
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Preprint (discussion started on 19 Aug 2019)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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SC1: 'More recent studies on trends and trend reversals of tropospheric NO2', Aristeidis Georgoulias, 19 Aug 2019
- AC1: 'Thank you', Viral Shah, 20 Aug 2019
RC1: 'Review of ACP paper by Shah et al.', Anonymous Referee #3, 20 Aug 2019
RC2: 'Shaw et al review', Anonymous Referee #2, 02 Sep 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Viral Shah on behalf of the Authors (06 Nov 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (11 Nov 2019) by Chul Han Song

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (11 Nov 2019)

RR by Anonymous Referee #4 (02 Dec 2019)

ED: Publish as is (03 Dec 2019) by Chul Han Song

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Short summary

We analyze 15 years of satellite observations of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and use an atmospheric chemistry model to understand the seasonal changes and trends in nitrogen oxides (NO_x) over China. We show that the seasonal changes in NO₂ occur due to changes in the NO_x oxidation lifetime. We find that Chinese NO_x emissions peaked in 2011 and had decreased by about 25 % by 2018. But the decrease in NO₂ in winter was larger, likely because of a simultaneous decrease in the NO_x oxidation lifetime.