Tracing the boundary layer sources of carbon monoxide in the Asian summer monsoon anticyclone using WRF-Chem

Abstract

The Asian summer monsoon (ASM) anticyclone is a dominant feature of the circulation in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere (UTLS) during boreal summer, which is found to have persistent maxima in carbon monoxide (CO). This enhancement is due to the upward transport of air with high CO from the planetary boundary layer (PBL), and confinement within the anticyclonic circulation. With rapid urbanization and industrialization, CO surface emissions are relatively high in the ASM region, especially in India and East China. To reveal the transport pathway of CO surface emissions over these two regions, and investigate the contribution of these to the CO distribution within the ASM anticyclone, a source sensitivity experiment was performed using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) with chemistry model (WRF-Chem). According to the experiment results, the CO within the ASM anticyclone mostly comes from India, while the contribution from East China is insignificant. The result ismainly caused by the different transportation mechanisms. In India, CO transportation is primarily affected by convection. The surface air with high CO over India is directly transported to the upper troposphere, and then confined within the ASM anticyclone, leading to a maximum value in the UTLS region. The CO transportation over East China is affected by deep convection and large-scale circulation, resulting mainly in transportation to Korea, Japan, and the North Pacific Ocean, with little upward transport to the anticyclone, leading to a high CO value at 215 hPa over these regions.