Abstract
Abstract. We report measurements of bromoform made by gas chromatography during the OP3 campaign in 2008. Measurements were made simultaneously for a few days at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Atmospheric Watch (GAW) site in the Danum Valley, a rainforest location in Sabah, Borneo, and at a nearby coastal site at Kunak. Background values at Kunak were higher than those measured in the rainforest (2–5 ppt compared with 1 ppt) and excursions away from the background were very much higher, reaching 10 s of ppt. Measurements of C2Cl4, an industrial tracer, showed no significant difference in background at the two sites. Modelling using two different models can reproduce a number of the observed features. The data are consistent with a strong, local coastal source of bromoform in eastern Sabah and can be used to infer the strength of the source of bromoform in South East Asia. However, they provide only a very weak constraint on global emissions. The global model results highlight the difficulty for short-lived species of extrapolating limited duration, local measurements to a global source.
Highlights
Introduction and backgroundTwo major field campaigns of the multi-national OP3 (Oxidant and particle photochemical processes above a south-east Asian tropical rainforest) project took place during 2008 inSabah, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo
We report measurements of bromoform made by gas chromatography during the OP3 campaign in 2008
In this paper we focus on a comparison between rainforest and coastal measurements of two halocarbons by gas chromatography to investigate differences between the coast and inland
Summary
Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. The OP3 project aims were wide-ranging, focussed on the better understanding of the interactions between natural forests, atmospheric composition and the Earth’s climate system. The Maritime Continent is likely the most important tropical location for this rapid transport (see, e.g., Levine et al, 2008), and characterising the background concentrations of these short-lived compounds, and their variability, in that region is an important research objective Halocarbons have both natural and anthropogenic sources. As a first step towards that strategy, it is clear that more measurements of the short-lived halocarbons, including bromoform, are required to allow better understanding of their sources and to characterise variability. Suffice to say that for CHBr3 and C2Cl4 the overall uncertainties are ±8% and ±4% respectively (1σ values)
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