Articles | Volume 24, issue 21
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12425-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12425-2024
Research article
 | 
11 Nov 2024
Research article |  | 11 Nov 2024

Age of air from in situ trace gas measurements: insights from a new technique

Eric A. Ray, Fred L. Moore, Hella Garny, Eric J. Hintsa, Bradley D. Hall, Geoff S. Dutton, David Nance, James W. Elkins, Steven C. Wofsy, Jasna Pittman, Bruce Daube, Bianca C. Baier, Jianghanyang Li, and Colm Sweeney

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Cited articles

Abalos, M., Calvo, N., Benito-Barca, S., Garny, H., Hardiman, S. C., Lin, P., Andrews, M. B., Butchart, N., Garcia, R., Orbe, C., Saint-Martin, D., Watanabe, S., and Yoshida, K.: The Brewer–Dobson circulation in CMIP6, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 13571–13591, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-13571-2021, 2021. 
Baier, B., Sweeney, C., Newberger, T., Higgs, J., Wolter, S., and NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory: NOAA AirCore atmospheric sampling system profiles (Version 20230831), NOAA GML [data set], https://doi.org/10.15138/6AV0-MY81, 2021. 
Birner, B., Chipperfield, M. P., Morgan, E. J., Stephens, B. B., Linz, M., Feng, W., Wilson, C., Bent, J. D., Wofsy, S. C., Severinghaus, J., and Keeling, R. F.: Gravitational separation of Ar/N2 and age of air in the lowermost stratosphere in airborne observations and a chemical transport model, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 12391–12408, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-12391-2020, 2020. 
Bischof, W., Borchers, R., Fabian, P., and Kruger, B. C.: Increased concentration and vertical distribution of carbon dioxide in the stratosphere, Nature, 316, 708–710, 1985. 
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Short summary
In this study we describe new techniques to derive age of air from multiple simultaneous measurements of long-lived trace gases in order to improve the fidelity of the age-of-air estimates and to be able to compare age of air from measurements taken from different instruments, platforms and decades.  This technique also allows new transport information to be obtained from the measurements such as the primary source latitude that can also be compared to models. 
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