Toru Iwata

Measurement of air-sea exchange of dimethyl sulfide and acetone by PTR-MS coupled with gradient flux technique.

We developed a new method for in situ measurement of air-sea fluxes of multiple volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by combining proton transfer reaction-mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) and gradient flux (GF) technique. The PTR-MS/GF system was first deployed to determine the air-sea flux of VOCs in the open ocean of the western Pacific, in addition to carbon dioxide and water vapor. Each profiling at seven heights from the ocean surface up to 14 m took 7 min. In total, 34 vertical profiles of VOCs in the marine atmosphere just above the ocean surface were obtained. The vertical gradient observed was significant for dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and acetone with the best-fit curves on quasi-logarithmic relationship. The mean fluxes of DMS and acetone were 5.5 ± 1.5 and 2.7 ± 1.3 μmol/m(2)/day, respectively. These fluxes are in general in accordance with those reported by previous expeditions.

A STUDY OF THE ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY LAYER USING RADON AND AIR POLLUTANTS AS TRACERS

Concentrations of radon 222Rn andair pollutants, meteorological parametersnear the surface and vertical profiles of meteorological elements were measured atUchio (Okayama City, Okayama Prefecture, Japan) 12 km north from the coast ofthe Inland Sea of Japan. In the nighttime, the 222Rn concentration increased in the case of weak winds, but did not increase as much in the case of moderate or strong winds, as had been expected. In the daytime, the 222Rn concentrationheld at a slightly higher than average level for the period from sunrise to about 1100 JST. It is considered that this phenomenon is due to a period of morning calm, that is, a transition period from land breeze to sea breeze.NO, which is sensitive to traffic volume,brought information concerning advection.Oxidant concentrations,which reflect the availability of sunlight,acted in the reverse manner to 222Rnconcentrations. Thus, a set of 222Rn and air pollutants could provide useful information regarding the local conditions of the atmospheric boundary layer.

Concentrations of 222Rn, Its Short-Lived Daughters And 212Pb And Their Ratios Under Complex Atmospheric Conditions And Topography

Atmospheric activity concentrations of 212Pb and short-lived 222Rndaughters, together with meteorological elements, have been observed continuously atthree sites at Kamisaibara Village in Japan. In addition, atmospheric activity concentrationof 222Rn, equilibrium-equivalent concentration of 222Rn and conditionsof the lower atmosphere were observed for three intensive observation periods at Akawase,one of the three sites in Kamisaibara Village. The equilibrium-equivalent concentration of222Rn is almost the same as the atmospheric activity concentration of short-lived222Rn daughters.The activity concentrations of 212Pb and the short-lived 222Rn daughtersand their ratio were low in the daytime owing to convective mixing, and high at nightowing to the surface-based inversion during periods of no precipitation. Their variationshave several patterns corresponding to the scale of the drainage wind or weak mixing.Mechanical mixing due to strong winds through both day and night during the first andsecond observation periods made the atmospheric activity concentrations of 212Pb and the short-lived 222Rn daughters continuously low. However, their ratios werecontinuously high during the first period yet continuously low during the second period.This difference can be explained by the effect ofextraction of 220Rn and 222Rndue to strong winds and snow cover. There were also cases in which the ratio of theatmospheric activity concentration of 212Pb to that of the short-lived 222Rndaughters at night was equal to or less than the ratio in the daytime. Thisinverse trend, asin the periods of no precipitation mentioned above, is considered to be due to near-neutralconditions on these nights.We find a difference in the ratio of the equilibrium-equivalent concentration of222Rn (the activity concentration of short-lived 222Rn daughters) tothe activity concentration of 222Rn during the first observation period and thatduring the second. The difference can be explained by snow cover on the ground. Wealso find differences among the ratios of the activity concentration of the short-lived222Rn daughters to that of 222Rn during the three observation periods.These differences can be explained by the submergence of paddy fields.

Sea‐to‐air flux of dimethyl sulfide in the South and North Pacific Ocean as measured by proton transfer reaction‐mass spectrometry coupled with the gradient flux technique

Exchange of dimethylsulfide (DMS) between the surface ocean and the lower atmosphere was examined by using Proton Transfer Reaction-Mass Spectrometry coupled with the Gradient Flux (PTR-MS/GF) system. We deployed the PTR-MS/GF system and observed vertical gradients of atmospheric DMS just above the sea surface in the subtropical and transitional South Pacific Ocean and the subarctic North Pacific Ocean. In total, we obtained 370 in situ profiles, and of these we used 46 data sets to calculate the sea-to-air flux of DMS. The DMS flux determined was in the range from 1.9 to 31 μmol m–2 d–1 and increased with wind speed and biological activity, in reasonable accordance with previous observations in the open ocean. The gas transfer velocity of DMS derived from the PTR-MS/GF measurements was similar to either that of DMS determined by the eddy covariance technique or that of insoluble gases derived from the dual tracer experiments, depending on the observation sites located in different geographic regions. When atmospheric conditions were strongly stable during the daytime in the subtropical ocean, the PTR-MS/GF observations captured a daytime vs. nighttime difference in DMS mixing ratios in the surface air overlying the ocean surface. The difference was mainly due to the sea-to-air DMS emissions and stable atmospheric conditions, thus affecting the gradient of DMS. This indicates that the DMS gradient is strongly controlled by diurnal variations in the vertical structure of the lower atmosphere above the ocean surface.