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Seasonal Differences in Atmospheric Nitrous Acid near Mediterranean Urban Areas

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Abstract

The major objective of this paper is to provide insights to sources and sinks of nitrous acid in urban areas, and their seasonal dependency on meteorology, photochemistry and long range transport. With this aim, nitrous acid (HONO) mixing ratios and other compounds were measured in Ashdod (south of Tel Aviv, Israel), a typical Mediterranean urban area. Statistical data analysis revealed the expected correlation between HONO and nitrogen oxides during the autumn campaign when HONO sources appeared to be traffic-, harbor-, and industry-related. Conversely, during summer HONO and NO2 were no longer correlated: NO2 at nighttime was probably deposited onto surfaces, soil and plants, whereas HONO at daytime was likely destroyed photolytically contributing to the OH concentration. Photolysis was expected to be the dominant HONO sink at daytime, especially during the summer period. Using modeled photolytical HONO lifetimes we estimate the magnitude of heterogeneous and/or organic electron transfer source reactions of HONO as 6–8 ppbv/h.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been part of a bilateral Italian–Israeli cooperation on environmental technologies (“Modeling system for urban air pollution” Project). Financial support mainly from Italian Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea (Department for Environmental Research and Development) is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are grateful to Drs. Anat Rozen, Doron Lahav, Karol Soudry of the “Ashdod–Yavneh Regional Association for Environmental Protection,” and Yaacov Mamane of the Technion for the hospitality, the local support, and the meteorological data, NOx, O3, PM2.5 and SO2 data used in this publication. Useful comments from Francesca Costabile (CNR) are also gratefully acknowledged. The authors further gratefully acknowledge the WMO (World meteorological organization) for the data overhead ozone column website (http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/arep/gaw/ozone/index.html) and the NCAR’s on-line TUV model (http://cprm.acduncar.edu/models/interactive.TUV/) for the photolysis ratio used in this publication.

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  1. C.N.R. – IIA, Monterotondo Scalo, Roma, Italy

    Antonio Amoroso, Harry J. Beine, Giulio Esposito, Cinzia Perrino, Maria Catrambone & Ivo Allegrini

  2. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Harry J. Beine

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  1. Antonio Amoroso
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Correspondence to Antonio Amoroso.

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Amoroso, A., Beine, H.J., Esposito, G. et al. Seasonal Differences in Atmospheric Nitrous Acid near Mediterranean Urban Areas. Water Air Soil Pollut 188, 81–92 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-007-9526-6

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