Articles | Volume 21, issue 18
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13729-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13729-2021
Research article
 | 
16 Sep 2021
Research article |  | 16 Sep 2021

Heterogeneity and chemical reactivity of the remote troposphere defined by aircraft measurements

Hao Guo, Clare M. Flynn, Michael J. Prather, Sarah A. Strode, Stephen D. Steenrod, Louisa Emmons, Forrest Lacey, Jean-Francois Lamarque, Arlene M. Fiore, Gus Correa, Lee T. Murray, Glenn M. Wolfe, Jason M. St. Clair, Michelle Kim, John Crounse, Glenn Diskin, Joshua DiGangi, Bruce C. Daube, Roisin Commane, Kathryn McKain, Jeff Peischl, Thomas B. Ryerson, Chelsea Thompson, Thomas F. Hanisco, Donald Blake, Nicola J. Blake, Eric C. Apel, Rebecca S. Hornbrook, James W. Elkins, Eric J. Hintsa, Fred L. Moore, and Steven Wofsy
Editorial note: the authors discovered several major mistakes or decision errors in their analysis of the NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) data presented in this paper. The changes were sufficiently extensive so that the executive editors decided to ask the authors for a completely new paper and to retract the 2021 paper. The errors that were corrected are described in the preface of the corrected paper, which is published as follows:

Guo, H., Flynn, C. M., Prather, M. J., Strode, S. A., Steenrod, S. D., Emmons, L., Lacey, F., Lamarque, J.-F., Fiore, A. M., Correa, G., Murray, L. T., Wolfe, G. M., St. Clair, J. M., Kim, M., Crounse, J., Diskin, G., DiGangi, J., Daube, B. C., Commane, R., McKain, K., Peischl, J., Ryerson, T. B., Thompson, C., Hanisco, T. F., Blake, D., Blake, N. J., Apel, E. C., Hornbrook, R. S., Elkins, J. W., Hintsa, E. J., Moore, F. L., and Wofsy, S. C.: Heterogeneity and chemical reactivity of the remote troposphere defined by aircraft measurements – corrected, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 99–117, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-99-2023, 2023.

The main conclusions of the study are unchanged except those regarding production of ozone, but most of the numbers and many of the figures changed slightly. Readers should refer to the corrected paper.

Ken Carslaw (chief-executive editor)

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Burkholder, J. B., Sander, S. P., Abbatt, J. P. D., Barker, J. R., Huie, R. E., Kolb, C. E., Kurylo, M. J., Orkin, V. L., Wilmouth, D. M., and Wine, P. H.: Chemical kinetics and photochemical data for use in atmospheric studies: evaluation number 18, Pasadena, CA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, available at: http://hdl.handle.net/2014/45510 (last access: 13 September 2021), 2015. 
Charlton-Perez, C. L., Evans, M. J., Marsham, J. H., and Esler, J. G.: The impact of resolution on ship plume simulations with NOx chemistry, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 9, 7505–7518, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-9-7505-2009, 2009. 
Douglass, A. R., Prather, M. J., Hall, T. M., Strahan, S. E., Rasch, P. J., Sparling, L. C., Coy, L., and Rodriguez, J. M.: Choosing meteorological input for the global modeling initiative assessment of high-speed aircraft, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 104, 27545–27564, https://doi.org/10.1029/1999JD900827, 1999. 
Eastham, S. D. and Jacob, D. J.: Limits on the ability of global Eulerian models to resolve intercontinental transport of chemical plumes, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 17, 2543–2553, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-2543-2017, 2017. 
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This paper has been retracted.

Short summary
The NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission built a climatology of the chemical composition of tropospheric air parcels throughout the middle of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The level of detail allows us to reconstruct the photochemical budgets of O3 and CH4 over these vast, remote regions. We find that most of the chemical heterogeneity is captured at the resolution used in current global chemistry models and that the majority of reactivity occurs in the hottest 20 % of parcels.
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