PNNL

Abstract

In this study we apply several recently-proposed models to the evolution of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) and organic gases advected from downtown Mexico City at an altitude of ~3.5 km during three days of aging. We constrain the model with and compare its results to available observations. The model SOA formed from oxidation of volatile organic compounds (V-SOA) when using the aromatic SOA parameterization of Ng et al. (2007) cannot explain the observed SOA concentrations in aged pollution, even as the low-NOx channel becomes more important away from the city. However, when using the aromatic SOA parameterization of Tsimpidi et al. (2010), V-SOA alone is similar to the regional aircraft observations, highlighting the wide diversity in current V-SOA formulations. When the SOA formed from oxidation of both semivolatile and intermediate volatility organic vapors (SI-SOA) is computed following Robinson et al. (2007) the model matches the observed SOA mass, but its O/C is too low by a factor of 2. With the parameterization of Grieshop et al. (2009) the total SOA mass is overpredicted by a factor of ~2 but O/C and volatility are closer to the observations. Heating or dilution of the air results in evaporation of a substantial fraction of the model SOA; this fraction is reduced by aging although differently for heating vs. dilution. Finally, lifting of the airmass tothe free-troposphere during dry convection results in a substantial increase of SOA bycondensation of semivolatile vapors, with this effect being reduced by aging.