Cited by 1,373Atmospheric chemistry and aerosolsToxic Organic Pollutants ImpactAtmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics

Volatile chemical products emerging as largest petrochemical source of urban organic emissions

Open access
McDonald, Brian C., de Gouw, Joost A., Gilman, Jessica B., Jathar, Shantanu H., Akherati, Ali, Cappa, Christopher D., Jimenez, Jose L., Lee-Taylor, Julia +12 more·2018·Science

Abstract

A gap in emission inventories of urban volatile organic compound (VOC) sources, which contribute to regional ozone and aerosol burdens, has increased as transportation emissions in the United States and Europe have declined rapidly. A detailed mass balance demonstrates that the use of volatile chemical products (VCPs)-including pesticides, coatings, printing inks, adhesives, cleaning agents, and personal care products-now constitutes half of fossil fuel VOC emissions in industrialized cities. The high fraction of VCP emissions is consistent with observed urban outdoor and indoor air measurements. We show that human exposure to carbonaceous aerosols of fossil origin is transitioning away from transportation-related sources and toward VCPs. Existing U.S. regulations on VCPs emphasize mitigating ozone and air toxics, but they currently exempt many chemicals that lead to secondary organic aerosols.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1126/science.aaq0524

Cites

126 of 126 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The current WHO Air Quality Guidelines for ambient ozone is 100 μg/m3 (~50 ppb) measured as 8-h maximum moving average within a day.

    “The current WHO Air Quality Guidelines for ambient (outdoor) ozone is 100 μg/m3 (~50 ppb) measured as 8-h maximum moving average within a day1.”

    From Ozone pollution: A Major health hazard worldwide (2019) · cites this paper as [1]

  • Ozone can cause coughing and sore or scratchy throat.

    “Ozone can cause coughing and sore or scratchy throat.”

    From Ozone pollution: A Major health hazard worldwide (2019) · cites this paper as [1]

  • Ozone exposure makes the lungs more susceptible to infection.

    “Ozone exposure makes the lungs more susceptible to infection.”

    From Ozone pollution: A Major health hazard worldwide (2019) · cites this paper as [1]

  • Ozone continues to damage the lungs even when the symptoms have disappeared.

    “Ozone continues to damage the lungs even when the symptoms have disappeared.”

    From Ozone pollution: A Major health hazard worldwide (2019) · cites this paper as [1]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 6

  1. J. A. de Gouw et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 39, L15803 (2012).
  2. R. Hossaini et al., Nat. Commun. 8, 15962 (2017).
  3. A. Lee et al., J. Geophys. Res. Atmos. 111, D17305 (2006).
  4. R. Volkamer et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 33, L17811 (2006).
  5. S. H. Jathar et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111, 10473-10478 (2014).
  6. S. M. Platt et al., Sci. Rep. 7, 4926 (2017).

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
McDonald, B. C., de Gouw, J. A., Gilman, J. B., Jathar, S. H., Akherati, A., Cappa, C. D., Jimenez, J. L., Lee-Taylor, J., Hayes, P. L., McKeen, S. A., Cui, Y. Y., Kim, S.-W., Gentner, D. R., Isaacman-VanWertz, G., Goldstein, A. H., Harley, R. A., Frost, G. J., Roberts, J. M., Ryerson, T. B., & Trainer, M.
Affiliations
  • Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (US)
  • Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA.
  • NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (US)
  • Colorado State University (US)
  • University of California, Davis (US)
  • Université de Montréal (CA)
  • Yale University (US)
  • Virginia Tech (US)
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
Corresponding author
McDonald, Brian C.
Venue
Science
Published
2018-02-16
Volume
359
Issue
6377
Pages
760-764
ISSN
  • 0036-8075 (ISSN-L)
  • 1095-9203
OpenAlex
W2785649357
Cited by
1,373
References
126
Citations by year
2026: 150 · 2025: 160 · 2024: 201 · 2023: 183 · 2022: 201 · 2021: 169 · 2020: 160 · 2019: 102 · 2018: 46 · 2012: 1
FWCI
57.99
Type
journal article
Language
en
Licence
public-domain
Locations
  • Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • NOAA Institutional Repository (submittedVersion, public-domain)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (AGS-1360834, AGS-1151062)
  • National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NA17OAR4310003)
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (2016-7173, G-2016-7050)
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN/05002-2014)
  • Fonds de Recherche du Québec Nature et Technologies (2016-PR-192364)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Toxic Organic Pollutants Impact
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics
Keywords
volatile chemical products, VOC emission inventory, secondary organic aerosol, ozone, pesticides, surface coating, printing inks, adhesives, cleaning agents, personal care products, mass balance, air pollution regulation, indoor air quality
MeSH terms
Air Pollutants, Dioctyl Sulfosuccinic Acid, Environmental Exposure, Humans, Hydrocarbons, United States, Volatile Organic Compounds

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review