Bidirectional Ecosystem–Atmosphere Fluxes of Volatile Organic Compounds Across the Mass Spectrum: How Many Matter?Click to copy article linkArticle link copied!
- Dylan B. Millet*Dylan B. Millet*E-mail: [email protected]University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, United StatesMore by Dylan B. Millet
- Hariprasad D. AlweHariprasad D. AlweUniversity of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, United StatesMore by Hariprasad D. Alwe
- Xin Chen
- Malte Julian DeventerMalte Julian DeventerUniversity of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, United StatesMore by Malte Julian Deventer
- Timothy J. GriffisTimothy J. GriffisUniversity of Minnesota, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108, United StatesMore by Timothy J. Griffis
- Rupert Holzinger
- Steven B. BertmanSteven B. BertmanWestern Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008, United StatesMore by Steven B. Bertman
- Pamela S. RicklyPamela S. RicklyIndiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, United StatesMore by Pamela S. Rickly
- Philip S. StevensPhilip S. StevensIndiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405, United StatesMore by Philip S. Stevens
- Thierry LéonardisThierry LéonardisIMT Lille Douai, Univ. Lille, SAGE - Département Sciences de l’Atmosphère et Génie de l’Environnement, 59000 Lille, FranceMore by Thierry Léonardis
- Nadine LocogeNadine LocogeIMT Lille Douai, Univ. Lille, SAGE - Département Sciences de l’Atmosphère et Génie de l’Environnement, 59000 Lille, FranceMore by Nadine Locoge
- Sébastien DusanterSébastien DusanterIMT Lille Douai, Univ. Lille, SAGE - Département Sciences de l’Atmosphère et Génie de l’Environnement, 59000 Lille, FranceMore by Sébastien Dusanter
- Geoffrey S. TyndallGeoffrey S. TyndallNational Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado 80305, United StatesMore by Geoffrey S. Tyndall
- Sergio L. AlvarezSergio L. AlvarezUniversity of Houston, Houston, Texas 77004, United StatesMore by Sergio L. Alvarez
- Matthew H. EricksonMatthew H. EricksonUniversity of Houston, Houston, Texas 77004, United StatesMore by Matthew H. Erickson
- James H. Flynn
Abstract

Terrestrial ecosystems are simultaneously the largest source and a major sink of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to the global atmosphere, and these two-way fluxes are an important source of uncertainty in current models. Here, we apply high-resolution mass spectrometry (proton transfer reaction-quadrupole interface time-of-flight; PTR-QiTOF) to measure ecosystem–atmosphere VOC fluxes across the entire detected mass range (m/z 0–335) over a mixed temperate forest and use the results to test how well a state-of-science chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem CTM) is able to represent the observed reactive carbon exchange. We show that ambient humidity fluctuations can give rise to spurious VOC fluxes with PTR-based techniques and present a method to screen for such effects. After doing so, 377 of the 636 detected ions exhibited detectable gross fluxes during the study, implying a large number of species with active ecosystem–atmosphere exchange. We introduce the reactivity flux as a measure of how Earth–atmosphere fluxes influence ambient OH reactivity and show that the upward total VOC (∑VOC) carbon and reactivity fluxes are carried by a far smaller number of species than the downward fluxes. The model underpredicts the ∑VOC carbon and reactivity fluxes by 40–60% on average. However, the observed net fluxes are dominated (90% on a carbon basis, 95% on a reactivity basis) by known VOCs explicitly included in the CTM. As a result, the largest CTM uncertainties in simulating VOC carbon and reactivity exchange for this environment are associated with known rather than unrepresented species. This conclusion pertains to the set of species detectable by PTR-TOF techniques, which likely represents the majority in terms of carbon mass and OH reactivity, but not necessarily in terms of aerosol formation potential. In the case of oxygenated VOCs, the model severely underpredicts the gross fluxes and the net exchange. Here, unrepresented VOCs play a larger role, accounting for ∼30% of the carbon flux and ∼50% of the reactivity flux. The resulting CTM biases, however, are still smaller than those that arise from uncertainties for known and represented compounds.
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