Sponsor
Financial support for recent work was provided in part by National Science Foundation grant OPP 87-17023; other support was provided by the Biospherics Research Corporation and the Andarz Company.
Published In
Antarctic Journal of the United States
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-1994
Subjects
Carbon monoxide -- Antarctica -- Measurement, Hydroxyl group -- Antarctica -- Measurement, Global environmental change
Abstract
Hydroxyl radicals remove hundreds, perhaps thousands, of organic gases from the atmosphere and are often regarded as am index of the oxidizing capacity of the Earth's atmosphere (Thompson 1992). In recent years, there have been growing concerns that, over the past century and now, human activities may be depleting hydroxyl concentrations by adding huge amounts of carbon monoxide and methane to the atmosphere. Reduction in the hydroxyl concentrations can then indirectly lead to more global warming, stratospheric ozone depletion, and other disturbances in atmospheric chemistry. Carbon monoxide (CO) is a key component in the determination of hydroxyl radical (OH) concentrations: increases of CO would lead to a decline of OH. Global increases of CO had been observed in the 1980s (Khalil and Rasmussen 1985, 1988, 1990), but now it appears that the atmospheric concentrations of CO are falling. Here we will report data from Antarctica that suggest recent decreases in the concentration of CO.
DOI
10.1016/S0169-8095(97)00003-3
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/7628
Citation Details
"Carbon monoxide in the antarctic atmosphere: Observations of decreasing concentrations," M.A.K. Khalil and R.A. Rasmussen. Antarctic journal of the United States, 1993 review, Vol. XXVIII-No. 5, 265-267, 1994.
Included in
Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons, Environmental Monitoring Commons