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Night-time sinks, daytime sources

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Nitrous acid can initiate photochemical air pollution events, but it is not clear where it comes from. Laboratory experiments now suggest that surface-bound nitrite accumulated overnight can release nitrous acid during the daytime.

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Figure 1: A hitherto unrecognized pathway to daytime nitrous acid.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jonathan Raff is in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Department of Chemistry, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47401-2204, USA,

    Jonathan Raff

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  1. Jonathan Raff
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Correspondence to Jonathan Raff.

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Raff, J. Night-time sinks, daytime sources. Nature Geosci 8, 5–7 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2315

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