The tropical forest and fire emissions experiment: Emission, chemistry, and transport of biogenic volatile organic compounds in the lower atmosphere over Amazonia

Abstract

Airborne and ground‐based mixing ratio and flux measurements using eddy covariance (EC) and for the first time the mixed layer gradient (MLG) and mixed layer variance (MLV) techniques are used to assess the impact of isoprene and monoterpene emissions on atmospheric chemistry in the Amazon basin. Average noon isoprene (7.8 ± 2.3 mg/m 2/h) and monoterpene fluxes (1.2 ± 0.5 mg/m 2/h) compared well between ground and airborne measurements and are higher than fluxes estimated in this region during other seasons. The biogenic emission model, Model of Emissions of Gases and Aerosols from Nature (MEGAN), estimates fluxes that are within the model and measurement uncertainty and can describe the large observed variations associated with land‐use change in the region north‐west of Manaus. Isoprene and monoterpenes accounted for ∼75% of the total OH reactivity in this region and are important volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for modeling atmospheric chemistry in Amazonia. The presence of fair weather clouds (cumulus humilis) had an important impact on the vertical distribution and chemistry of VOCs through the planetary boundary layer (PBL), the cloud layer, and the free troposphere (FT). Entrainment velocities between 10:00 and 11:30 local time (LT) are calculated to be on the order of 8–10 cm/s. The ratio of methyl‐vinyl‐ketone (MVK) and methacrolein (MAC) (unique oxidation products of isoprene chemistry) with respect to isoprene showed a pronounced increase in the cloud layer due to entrainment and an increased oxidative capacity in broken cloud decks. A decrease of the ratio in the lower free troposphere suggests cloud venting through activated clouds. OH modeled in the planetary boundary layer using a photochemical box model is much lower than OH calculated from a mixed layer budget approach. An ambient reactive sesquiterpene mixing ratio of 1% of isoprene would be sufficient to explain most of this discrepancy. Increased OH production due to increased photolysis in the cloud layer balances the low OH values modeled for the planetary boundary layer. The intensity of segregation (Is) of isoprene and OH, defined as a relative reduction of the reaction rate constant due to incomplete mixing, is found to be significant: up to 39 ± 7% in the ∼800‐m‐deep cloud layer. The effective reaction rate between isoprene and OH can therefore vary significantly in certain parts of the lower atmosphere.