On the contribution of nocturnal heterogeneous reactive nitrogen chemistry to particulate matter formation during wintertime pollution events in Northern Utah
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Mountain basins in Northern Utah, including the Salt Lake Valley (SLV), suffer from wintertime air pollution events associated with stagnant atmospheric conditions. During these events, fine particulate matter concentrations (PM 2.5 ) can exceed national ambient air quality standards. Previous studies in the SLV have found that PM 2.5 is primarily composed of ammonium nitrate (NH 4 NO 3 ), formed from the condensation of gas-phase ammonia (NH 3 ) and nitric acid (HNO 3 ). Additional studies in several western basins, including the SLV, have suggested that production of HNO 3 from nocturnal heterogeneous N 2 O 5 uptake is the dominant source of NH 4 NO 3 during winter. The rate of this process, however, remains poorly quantified, in part due to limited vertical measurements above the surface, where this chemistry is most active. The 2017 Utah Winter Fine Particulate Study (UWFPS) provided the first aircraft measurements of detailed chemical composition during wintertime pollution events in the SLV. Coupled with ground-based observations, analyses of day- and nighttime research flights confirm that PM 2.5 during wintertime pollution events is principally composed of NH 4 NO 3 , limited by HNO 3 . Here, observations and box model analyses assess the contribution of N 2 O 5 uptake to nitrate aerosol during pollution events using the NO3- production rate, N 2 O 5 heterogeneous uptake coefficient ( γ (N 2 O 5 )), and production yield of ClNO 2 ( φ (ClNO 2 )), which had medians of 1.6 µg m −3 h −1 , 0.076, and 0.220, respectively. While fit values of γ (N 2 O 5 ) may be biased high by a potential under-measurement in aerosol surface area, other fit quantities are unaffected. Lastly, additional model simulations suggest nocturnal N 2 O 5 uptake produces between 2.4 and 3.9 µg m −3 of nitrate per day when considering the possible effects of dilution. This nocturnal production is sufficient to account for 52 %–85 % of the daily observed surface-level buildup of aerosol nitrate, though accurate quantification is dependent on modeled dilution, mixing processes, and photochemistry.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".