Characterization of soluble bromide measurements and a case study of BrO observations during ARCTAS

Article

Liao, J., Huey, L. G., Scheuer, E., Dibb, J. E., Stickel, R. E., Tanner, D. J., Neuman, J. A., Nowak, J. B., Choi, S., Wang, Y., Salawitch, R. J., Canty, T., Chance, Kelly V., Kurosu, T., Suleiman, R., Weinheimer, A. J., Shetter, R. E., Fried, A., Brune, W., Anderson, B., Zhang, X., Chen, G., Crawford, J., Hecobian, A., and Ingall, E. D. 2012. "Characterization of soluble bromide measurements and a case study of BrO observations during ARCTAS." Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics, 12, (3) 1327–1338. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-12-1327-2012.

A focus of the Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS) mission was examination of bromine photochemistry in the spring time high latitude troposphere based on aircraft and satellite measurements of bromine oxide (BrO) and related species. The NASA DC-8 aircraft utilized a chemical ionization mass spectrometer (CIMS) to measure BrO and a mist chamber (MC) to measure soluble bromide. We have determined that the MC detection efficiency to molecular bromine (Br₂), hypobromous acid (HOBr), bromine oxide (BrO), and hydrogen bromide (HBr) as soluble bromide (Br^-) was 0.9±0.1, 1.06 0.30/-0.35, 0.4±0.1, and 0.95±0.1, respectively. These efficiency factors were used to estimate soluble bromide levels along the DC-8 flight track of 17 April 2008 from photochemical calculations constrained to in situ BrO measured