Tracking Urban Nitrous Acid (HONO) Emissions and Secondary Production in the Great Lakes Region during Michigan-Ontario Ozone Source Experiment (MOOSE)

This project contributes to the Michigan-Ontario Ozone Source Experiment (MOOSE) field campaign scheduled to take place in the summers of 2021 and 2022 over metropolitan Detroit. MOOSE is a collaborative effort sponsored by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), and includes participation from the Canadian government, NOAA, NASA, USEPA and the USFS.

The goal of the campaign is to improve the understanding of the sources and chemistry associated with the production of ozone air pollution in the region.

The research in this project supported by NSF includes the testing of hypotheses to better understand heterogeneous pathways to HONO formation and includes the measurement of stable isotopes that will serve as a unique tool to rigorously constrain sources, chemical processing pathways, and sinks of reactive nitrogen species based upon their respective isotopic signatures. This effort is expected to help to clarify the role of HONO in ozone production.

The project includes improvements that will be made to the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) chemical transport model that will benefit users of the model.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.