Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) emit a large number of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to the atmosphere. In this study, we conducted mobile laboratory measurements of VOCs, methane (CH4) and ammonia (NH3) downwind of dairy cattle, beef cattle, sheep and chicken CAFO facilities in northeastern Colorado using a hydronium ion time-of-flight chemical-ionization mass spectrometer (H3O+ ToF-CIMS), which can detect numerous VOCs. Regional measurements of CAFO emissions in northeastern Colorado were also performed using the NOAA WP-3D aircraft during the Shale Oil and Natural Gas Nexus (SONGNEX) campaign. Alcohols and carboxylic acids dominate VOC concentrations and the reactivity of the VOCs with hydroxyl (OH) radicals. Sulfur-containing and phenolic species provide the largest contributions to the odor activity values and the nitrate radical (NO3) reactivity of VOC emissions, respectively. VOC compositions determined from mobile laboratory and aircraft measurements generally agree well with each other. The high time-resolution mobile measurements allow for the separation of the sources of VOCs from different parts of the operations occurring within the facilities. We show that the emissions of ethanol are primarily associated with feed storage and handling. Based on mobile laboratory measurements, we apply a multivariate regression analysis using NH3 and ethanol as tracers to determine the relative importance of animal-related emissions (animal exhalation and waste) and feed-related emissions (feed storage and handling) for different VOC species. Feed storage and handling contribute significantly to emissions of alcohols, carbonyls, carboxylic acids and sulfur-containing species. Emissions of phenolic species and nitrogen-containing species are predominantly associated with animals and their waste.
Lerner, B. M.; Gilman, J. B.; Aikin, K. C.; Atlas, E. L.; Goldan, P. D.; Graus, M.; Hendershot, R.; Isaacman-VanWertz, G. A.; Koss, A.; Kuster, W. C.; Lueb, R. A.; McLaughlin, R. J.; Peischl, J.; Sueper, D.; Ryerson, T. B.; Tokarek, T. W.; Warneke, C.; Yuan, B.; de Gouw, J. A.;
Volatile organic compounds were quantified during two aircraft-based field campaigns using highly automated, whole air samplers with expedited post-flight analysis via a new custom-built, field-deployable gas chromatography-mass spectrometry instrume...
Tevlin, A. G.; Li, Y.; Collett, J. L.; McDuffie, E. E.; Fischer, E. V.; Murphy, J. G.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 122(22), 12468-12487.
Description:
Ammonia (NH3) mixing ratios were measured between the surface and 280m aboveground level from a moveable carriage at the Boulder Atmospheric Observatory tower in summer 2014 as part of the Front Range Air Pollution and Photochemistry Experiment. The ...
Colette, A.; Andersson, C.; Manders, A.; Mar, K.; Mircea, M.; Pay, M. T.; Raffort, V.; Tsyro, S.; Cuvelier, C.; Adani, M.; Bessagnet, B.; Bergstrom, R.; Briganti, G.; Butler, T.; Cappelletti, A.; Couvidat, F.; D'Isidoro, M.; Doumbia, T.; Fagerli, H.; Granier, C.; Heyes, C.; Klimont, Z.; Ojha, N.; Otero, N.; Schaap, M.; Sindelarova, K.; Stegehuis, A. I.; Roustan, Y.; Vautard, R.; van Meijgaard, E.; Vivanco, M. G.; Wind, P.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Geoscientific Model Development, 10(9), 3255-3276.
Description:
The EURODELTA-Trends multi-model chemistry-transport experiment has been designed to facilitate a better understanding of the evolution of air pollution and its drivers for the period 1990-2010 in Europe. The main objective of the experiment is to as...
We describe the University of Colorado mobile Solar Occultation Flux instrument (CU mobile SOF). The instrument consists of a digital mobile solar tracker that is coupled to a Fourier transform spectrometer (FTS) of 0.5 cm (-1) resolution and a UV-vi...
Giordano, M. R.; Kalnajs, L. E.; Avery, A.; Goetz, J. D.; Davis, S. M.; DeCarlo, P. F.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 17(1), 1-20.
Description:
Understanding the sources and evolution of aerosols is crucial for constraining the impacts that aerosols have on a global scale. An unanswered question in atmospheric science is the source and evolution of the Antarctic aerosol population. Previous ...
Sayers, M. J.; Grimm, A. G.; Shuchman, R. A.; Bosse, K. R.; Fahnenstiel, G. L.; Ruberg, S. A.; Leshkevich, G. A.;
Published Date:
2019
Source:
Journal of Great Lakes Research, 45(3), 508-521.
Description:
Blooms of harmful cyanobacteria (cyanoHABs) have occurred on an annual basis in western Lake Erie for more than a decade. Previously, we developed and validated an algorithm to map the extent of the submerged and surface scum components of cyanoHABs ...
Hill, M. C.; Bendlin, A. R.; Van Cise, A. M.; Milette-Winfree, A.; Ligon, A. D.; Ü, A. C.; Deakos, M. H.; Oleson, E. M.;
Published Date:
2019
Source:
Marine Mammal Science, 35(3), 797-824.
Description:
Abstract Little is known about short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus) in the western North Pacific outside of Japanese coastal waters. To expand understanding of short-finned pilot whale ecology in the region, we conducted small-boat ...
Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 9(1), 627-646.
Description:
Low and high clouds of shallow extent, especially stratocumulus and even more so for high-level cirrus clouds that reside where vertical resolution is particularly coarse, are poorly represented in large-scale models such as global climate models and...
Butler, A. H.; Sjoberg, J. P.; Seidel, D. J.; Rosenlof, K. H.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Earth System Science Data, 9(1), 63-76.
Description:
Major, sudden midwinter stratospheric warmings (SSWs) are large and rapid temperature increases in the winter polar stratosphere are associated with a complete reversal of the climatological westerly winds (i.e., the polar vortex). These extreme even...
Jensen, E. J.; Karcher, B.; Ueyama, R.; Pfister, L.; Bui, T. V.; Diskin, G. S.; DiGangi, J. P.; Woods, S.; Lawson, R. P.; Froyd, K. D.; Murphy, D. M.;
Published Date:
2018
Source:
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 123(21), 12210-12227.
Description:
Recent laboratory experiments have advanced our understanding of heterogeneous ice nucleation at low temperatures. We use these laboratory results, along with field measurements of aerosol composition, to constrain a parameterization of heterogeneous...
Stauffer, R. M.; Thompson, A. M.; Oltmans, S. J.; Johnson, B. J.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 122(2), 1261-1280.
Description:
Much attention has been focused on the transport of ozone (O-3) to the western U.S., particularly given the latest revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard to 70 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) of O-3. This makes quantifying the contr...
Jathar, S. H.; Heppding, C.; Link, M. F.; Farmer, D. K.; Akherati, A.; Kleeman, M. J.; de Gouw, J. A.; Veres, P. R.; Roberts, J. M.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 17(14), 8959-8970.
Description:
Isocyanic acid (HNCO), an acidic gas found in tobacco smoke, urban environments, and biomass-burning-affected regions, has been linked to adverse health outcomes. Gasoline-and diesel-powered engines and biomass burning are known to emit HNCO and hypo...
Barkley, H. C.; Cohen, A. L.; Mollica, N. R.; Brainard, R. E.; Rivera, H. E.; DeCarlo, T. M.; Lohmann, G. P.; Drenkard, E. J.; Alpert, A. E.; Young, C. W.; Vargas-Ángel, B.; Lino, K. C.; Oliver, T. A.; Pietro, K. R.; Luu, V. H.;
Published Date:
2018
Source:
Communications Biology, 1(1), 177.
Description:
The oceans are warming and coral reefs are bleaching with increased frequency and severity, fueling concerns for their survival through this century. Yet in the central equatorial Pacific, some of the world’s most productive reefs regularly experie...
Observations of atmospheric trace gases in the tropical upper troposphere (UT), tropical tropopause layer (TTL), and lower stratosphere (LS) require dedicated measurement platforms and instrumentation. Here we present a new limb-scanning Differential...
Palm, B. B.; Campuzano-Jost, P.; Day, D. A.; Ortega, A. M.; Fry, J. L.; Brown, S. S.; Zarzana, K. J.; Dube, W.; Wagner, N. L.; Draper, D. C.; Kaser, L.; Jud, W.; Karl, T.; Hansel, A.; Gutierrez-Montes, C.; Jimenez, J. L.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 17(8), 5331-5354.
Description:
Ambient pine forest air was oxidized by OH, O-3, or NO3 radicals using an oxidation flow reactor (OFR) during the BEACHON-RoMBAS (Bio-hydro-atmosphere interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H2O, Organics and Nitrogen - Rocky Mountain Biogenic Aero...
Long, C. S.; Fujiwara, M.; Davis, S.; Mitchell, D. M.; Wright, C. J.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 17(23), 14593-14629.
Description:
Two of the most basic parameters generated from a reanalysis are temperature and winds. Temperatures in the reanalyses are derived from conventional (surface and balloon), aircraft, and satellite observations. Winds are observed by conventional syste...
Perring, A. E.; Schwarz, J. P.; Markovic, M. Z.; Fahey, D. W.; Jimenez, J. L.; Campuzano-Jost, P.; Palm, B. D.; Wisthaler, A.; Mikoviny, T.; Diskin, G.; Sachse, G.; Ziemba, L.; Anderson, B.; Shingler, T.; Crosbie, E.; Sorooshian, A.; Yokelson, R.; Gao, R. S.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 122(2), 1086-1097.
Description:
Water uptake by black carbon (BC)-containing aerosol was quantified in North American wildfire plumes of varying age (1 to similar to 40 h old) sampled during the SEAC(4)RS mission (2013). A Humidified Dual SP2 (HD-SP2) is used to optically size BC-c...
Miller, C. C.; Jacob, D. J.; Marais, E. A.; Yu, K. R.; Travis, K. R.; Kim, P. S.; Fisher, J. A.; Zhu, L.; Wolfe, G. M.; Hanisco, T. F.; Keutsch, F. N.; Kaiser, J.; Min, K. E.; Brown, S. S.; Washenfelder, R. A.; Abad, G. G.; Chance, K.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 17(14), 8725-8738.
Description:
Glyoxal (CHOCHO) is produced in the atmosphere by the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Like formaldehyde (HCHO), another VOC oxidation product, it is measurable from space by solar backscatter. Isoprene emitted by vegetation is the dom...
Bruhwiler, L. M.; Basu, S.; Bergamaschi, P.; Bousquet, P.; Dlugokencky, E.; Houweling, S.; Ishizawa, M.; Kim, H. S.; Locatelli, R.; Maksyutov, S.; Montzka, S.; Pandey, S.; Patra, P. K.; Petron, G.; Saunois, M.; Sweeney, C.; Schwietzke, S.; Tans, P.; Weatherhead, E. C.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 122(7), 4070-4083.
Description:
Recent studies have proposed significant increases in CH4 emissions possibly from oil and gas (O&G) production, especially for the U.S. where O&G production has reached historically high levels over the past decade. In this study, we show that an ens...
Thornberry, T. D.; Rollins, A. W.; Avery, M. A.; Woods, S.; Lawson, R. P.; Bui, T. V.; Gao, R. S.;
Published Date:
2017
Source:
Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 122(8), 4494-4507.
Description:
The NASA Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (ATTREX) deployment in January-March 2014 yielded more than 34h of cirrus cloud sampling in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) over the western Pacific. Cirrus were encountered throughout the TTL, at ...
This proof-of-concept study demonstrates that methane (CH4) emissions from natural gas (NG) and agriculture can be disentangled using the concept of excess column observations. A network of cost-effective sensors measured excess column-averaged dry-a...