Airborne flux measurements of ammonia over the southern Great Plains using chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Schobesberger, Siegfried; D'Ambro, Emma L.; Vettikkat, Lejish; Lee, Ben H.; Peng, Qiaoyun; Bell, David M.; Shilling, John E.; Shrivastava, Manish; Pekour, Mikhail; Fast, Jerome; Thornton, Joel A.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-247-2023

Articles | Volume 16, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-247-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-247-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 16, issue 2

Research article

|

19 Jan 2023

Research article |

| 19 Jan 2023

Airborne flux measurements of ammonia over the southern Great Plains using chemical ionization mass spectrometry

Siegfried Schobesberger, Emma L. D'Ambro, Lejish Vettikkat, Ben H. Lee, Qiaoyun Peng, David M. Bell, John E. Shilling, Manish Shrivastava, Mikhail Pekour, Jerome Fast, and Joel A. Thornton

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-16-247-2023-supplement

Data sets

National Emissions Inventory (NEI) 2017 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): https://www.epa.gov/air-emissions-inventories/2017-national-emissions-inventory-nei-data

Model code and software

FluxToolbox G. M. Wolfe https://github.com/AirChem/FluxToolbox

Short summary

We present a new, highly sensitive technique for measuring atmospheric ammonia, an important trace gas that is emitted mainly by agriculture. We deployed the instrument on an aircraft during research flights over rural Oklahoma. Due to its fast response, we could analyze correlations with turbulent winds and calculate ammonia emissions from nearby areas at 1 to 2 km resolution. We observed high spatial variability and point sources that are not resolved in the US National Emissions Inventory.