Abstract
The hydroxyl radical (OH) is the central oxidant in Earth’s troposphere, but its temporal variability is poorly understood. We combine 2012–2020 satellite-based isoprene and formaldehyde measurements to identify coherent OH changes over temperate and tropical forests with attribution to emission trends, biotic stressors, and climate. We identify a multiyear OH decrease over the Southeast United States and show that with increasingly hot/dry summers the regional chemistry could become even less oxidizing depending on competing temperature/drought impacts on isoprene. Furthermore, while global mean OH decreases during El Niño, we show that near-field effects over tropical rainforests can alternate between high/low OH anomalies due to opposing fire and biogenic emission impacts. Results provide insights into how atmospheric oxidation will evolve with changing emissions and climate.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Journal | Science Advances |
Volume | 10 |
Issue number | 20 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - May 2024 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2024 the Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. no claim to original U.S. Government Works. distributed under a creative commons Attribution noncommercial license 4.0 (cc BY-nc).
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article