Revising VOC emissions speciation improves the simulation of global background ethane and propane

Rowlinson, Matthew J.; Evans, Mat J.; Carpenter, Lucy J.; Read, Katie A.; Punjabi, Shalini; Adedeji, Adedayo; Fakes, Luke; Lewis, Ally; Richmond, Ben; Passant, Neil; Murrells, Tim; Henderson, Barron; Bates, Kelvin H.; Helmig, Detlev

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8317-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 14

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8317-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-8317-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 14

Research article

|

24 Jul 2024

Research article |

| 24 Jul 2024

Revising VOC emissions speciation improves the simulation of global background ethane and propane

Matthew J. Rowlinson, Mat J. Evans, Lucy J. Carpenter, Katie A. Read, Shalini Punjabi, Adedayo Adedeji, Luke Fakes, Ally Lewis, Ben Richmond, Neil Passant, Tim Murrells, Barron Henderson, Kelvin H. Bates, and Detlev Helmig

Data sets

Ground-Based Reactive Gas Observations Within the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) Network (https://ebas-data.nilu.no/) Lucy J. Carpenter et al. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2527-8_8-1

Flask-Air Sample Measurements of Atmospheric Non Methane Hydrocarbons Mole Fractions from the NOAA GML Carbon Cycle Surface Network at Global and Regional Background Sites, 2004-2016 (Version 2021.05.04) D. Helmig et al. https://doi.org/10.15138/6AV8-GS57

Model code and software

Revising VOC emissions speciation improves the simulation of global background of ethane and propane Matthew Rowlinson https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11259257

geoschem/GCClassic: GEOS-Chem Classic 14.0.2 The International GEOS-Chem User Community https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7383492

Short summary

Ethane and propane are volatile organic compounds emitted from human activities which help to form ozone, a pollutant and greenhouse gas, and also affect the chemistry of the lower atmosphere. Atmospheric models tend to do a poor job of reproducing the abundance of these compounds in the atmosphere. By using regional estimates of their emissions, rather than globally consistent estimates, we can significantly improve the simulation of ethane in the model and make some improvement for propane.