Technical Note: Ensuring consistent, global measurements of very short-lived halocarbon gases in the ocean and atmosphere

J H Butler,T G Bell,L J Carpenter,B Quack,B D Hall,J Williams

doi:10.5194/acp-10-327-2010

Abstract

Abstract. Very short-lived halocarbons are significant sources of reactive halogen in the marine boundary layer, and likely in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Quantifying ambient concentrations in the surface ocean and atmosphere is essential for understanding the atmospheric impact of these trace gas fluxes. Despite the body of literature increasing substantially over recent years, calibration issues complicate the comparison of results and limit the utility of building larger-scale databases that would enable further development of the science (e.g. sea-air flux quantification, model validation, etc.). With this in mind, thirty-one scientists from both atmospheric and oceanic halocarbon communities in eight nations gathered in London in February 2008 to discuss the scientific issues and plan an international effort toward developing common calibration scales (http://tinyurl.com/c9cg58). Here, we discuss the outputs from this meeting, suggest the compounds that should be targeted initially, identify opportunities for beginning calibration and comparison efforts, and make recommendations for ways to improve the comparability of previous and future measurements.

Highlights

For this discussion, we consider very short-lived halocarbons as those that have atmospheric lifetimes of less than six months in the atmosphere
Bell with that given in the 2002 and 2006 Scientific Assessments of Ozone Depletion (Ko and Poulet, 2003; Law and Sturges, 2007); it differs from the definition of “short-lived gases” in the 1998 Ozone Assessment (Kurylo and Rogriguez, 1999), which used one year as an upper limit and included methyl bromide
Very short-lived halocarbons have been implicated as significant sources of reactive halogen in the marine boundary layer and in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere

Summary

Introduction

We consider very short-lived halocarbons as those that have atmospheric lifetimes of less than six months in the atmosphere. Very short-lived halocarbons have been implicated as significant sources of reactive halogen in the marine boundary layer and in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. Longer-lived source gases alone cannot account for the total amount of inorganic bromine in the lower stratosphere

Results

Conclusion