Atmospheric trace gas

Atmospheric trace gas chemistry is a new rapidly growing field of paleo-atmospheric research, because the radiative properties of CO2, CH4, and N2O make them potential indicators of climate change. A fundamental problem in constructing a record of trace gas concentrations from ice-cores is the fact that the air in bubbles is always younger than the age of the surrounding ice. This is because as snow is buried by later snowfalls and slowly becomes transformed to fim and ice, the air between the snow crystals remains in contact with the atmosphere until the air bubbles become sealed at the fim/ice transition, when density increases to about 0.83gcm. The trapped air is thus younger than the matrix, with the age difference... 

R.D. Cadle, A comparison of volcanic with other fluxes of atmospheric trace gas constituents. Rev. Geophys. 18 (1980) 746-752. 

Armerding, W., M. Spiekermann, J. Walter, and F. J. Comes, Multipass Optical Absorption Spectroscopy A Fast Scanning Laser Spectrometer for the In-Situ Determination of Atmospheric Trace Gas Components, in Particular OH, Appl. Opt., 35, 4206-4219... 

Griffith, D. W. T., and G. Schuster, Atmospheric Trace Gas Analysis Using Matrix Isolation-Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, J. Atmos. Chem., 5, 59-81 (1987). 

Rommelaere, V., L. Arnaud, and J.-M. Barnola, Reconstructing Recent Atmospheric Trace Gas Concentrations from Polar Firn and Bubbly Ice Data by Inverse Methods, J. Geophys. Res., 102, 30069-30083 (1997). 

Table 1 - Atmospheric Trace Gas Composition is Controlled by a Complex Combination of Processes. 

Methane is an important atmospheric trace gas which affects the chemistry of the troposphere [10] and of the stratosphere [11]. It is... 

Etheridge D. M., Pearman G. I., and de Silva F. (1988) Atmospheric trace-gas variations as revealed by air trapped in an ice core from Law Dome, Antarctica. Ann. Glacial. 10, 28-33. 

K. Toda, P.K. Dasgupta, Environmental applications atmospheric trace gas analyses. Ch. 22, p. 640, in S.D. Kolev, I.D. McKelvie (Eds.), Advances in Flow Injection Analysis and Related Techniques, Wilson and Wilson s Comprehensive Analytical Chemistry, vol. 54, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 2008. 

Leifer, R., K. Sommers, and S. F. Guggenheim (1981). Atmospheric trace gas measurements with a new clean air sampling system. Geophys. Res. Lett. 8, 1079-1082. 

Atmospheric trace gas levels are frequently expressed in terms of mixing ratios. The volume mixing ratio of a species i (EJ is identical to its mole fraction. We have developed forms of the atmospheric diffusion equation using the concentration c, as the dependent variable. Let us take c, as the molar concentration, expressed in units of mol i m-3. Since the mass concentration m, and the molar concentration c, are related by m, = c, Af where Mi is the molecular weight of species i, the atmospheric diffusion equation applies equally well to the mass concentration. 

Atmospheric trace gas levels are frequently expressed in terms of mixing ratios. The volume mixing ratio of a species /,, is identical to its mole fraction. We have developed... 

Nelson D. D., Zahniser M. S., McManus J. B., Shorter J. H., Wormhoudt J. C., Kolb C. E., Recent Improvements in atmospheric trace gas monitoring using mid-infrared tunable diode lasers, SPIE Proc., 2834, 148-159, 1996. 

R. Kormann, H. Fischer, C. Gurk, F. Helleis, T. Kltipfel, K. Kowalski, R. Konigstedt, U. Par-chatka, V. Wagner, Application of a multi-laser tunable diode laser absorption spectrometer for atmospheric trace gas measurements at sub-ppbv levels. Spectrochim. Acta, Part A 58, 2489 (2002)... 

Those are, for instance, known as active chemical ionization mass spectrometry (ACIMS) for atmospheric trace-gas measurements in the chemosphere, proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PRT-MS), selected ion flow tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS), ion-molectrle reaction mass spectrometry (IMR-MS), ion attachment mass spectrometry (lAMS), and ion mobility spectroscopy (IMS). Those have now become part of the exterrsive resources of experimental techniques dedicated to all the scientific fields, especially such as fundamentals of gas-phase ion kinetics and thermochentistry, physical organic chemistry, atmospheric chemistry, interstellar chemistry, plasma, and combustion chemistry, radiation chemistry, analytical chemistry, and irltimately even medicine and biology. 

Meier, Arndt, Determination of Atmospheric Trace Gas Amounts and Corresponding Natural Isotopic Ratios by Means of Ground-Based FTIR Spectroscopy in the High Arctic, Alfred-Wegener-lnstitut fiir Polar und Meeresforschimg Bremen, Germany, 1997. 

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