Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published September 4, 2009 | Published
Journal Article Open

Lightning and anthropogenic NO_x sources over the United States and the western North Atlantic Ocean: Impact on OLR and radiative effects

Abstract

The migration of enhancements in NO_2 concentration, outgoing longwave radiation (OLR), and radiative effects associated with the onset of the North American Monsoon in July 2005 has been investigated using satellite data and the Regional Chemical Transport Model (REAM). The satellite data include the tropospheric NO2 columns, tropospheric O_3 profiles, and OLR from OMI, TES and NOAA-16 satellite, respectively, for June and July 2005. The simulated OLR captures the spatial distribution of the remotely sensed OLR fields with relatively small biases (≤5.7%) and high spatial correlations (R ≥ 0.88). This study reveals that the lightning-generated NOx exerts a larger, by up to a factor of three, impact on OLR (up to 0.35 Wm^(−2)) and radiative effects (up to 0.55 Wm^(−2)) by enhancing O_3 in the upper troposphere than anthropogenic NO_x that increases O_3 in the lower troposphere, despite the fact that the lightning-generated NO_x and O_3 are much smaller than those from the anthropogenic emissions. The radiative effect by lightning-derived upper tropospheric O_3 over the convective outflow regions is affected by the changes in lightning frequency. Thus the changes in convection due to global warming may alter the geographical distribution and magnitude of the radiative effect of lightning-derived O3, and this paper is a first step in quantifying the current radiative impact.

Additional Information

© 2009 American Geophysical Union. Received 30 May 2009; accepted 4 August 2009; published 4 September 2009. We thank all members of the OMI, TES and NOAA16 satellite team for providing the data. Special thanks to anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. This work was funded by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, under contract to NASA and University of California Office of President, and Grant No. 1700-1737-322-210-13 from the Korean Ministry of Environment.

Attached Files

Published - Choi2009p5917Geophys_Res_Lett.pdf

Files

Choi2009p5917Geophys_Res_Lett.pdf
Files (5.3 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:37c49702f05a1cca5a6e3f62a93ff77f
5.3 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 19, 2023