Source attribution of oxygenated volatile organic compounds in the remote tropical atmosphere
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Authors
Verreyken, B.
Discipline
Earth and related Environmental sciences
Audience
Scientific
Date
2021Metadata
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Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) have a significant impact on the oxidative capacity of the atmosphere and thus on air quality and climate. Among them, the oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs) represent the largest sink of OH in the remote marine atmosphere. Large uncertainties in the global budget of OVOCs still exist due to the incomplete representation of their chemistry in atmospheric models, and poor characterisation of the terrestrial emissions as well as the ocean-atmosphere exchanges for these compounds and their precursors. This is partly due to a paucity in data, especially in remote tropical regions. Analysis of a 2-year, near-continuous data set of (O)VOC concentrations, registered at the Maïdo observatory (21°S, 54°E, 2160 m altitude), located on La Réunion, is presented. The work presented consists of i) the development of a mesoscale Lagrangian particle dispersion model, FLEXPART-AROME, ii) the study of biomass burning (BB) signals recorded at the observatory, and iii) a source attribution study of (O)VOCs at La Réunion relying on a combination of a multivariate statistical model, and back-trajectory calculations generated with FLEXPART-AROME.
Identifiers
Type
Doctoral thesis
Peer-Review
No
Language
eng