Data · dataset · 2026
Observationally constrained analysis of sulfur cycle in the marine atmosphere with NASA ATom measurements and AeroCom model simulations
Listed in National Center for Atmospheric Research
The atmospheric sulfur cycle plays a key role in air quality, climate, and ecosystems, such as pollution, radiative forcing, new particle formation, and acid rain.
Description
In this study, we compare the spatially and temporally resolved measurements from the NASA Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission with simulations from five AeroCom III models for four sulfur species (dimethyl sulfide (DMS), sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), particulate methanesulfonate (MSA), and particulate sulfate (SO 4 ) ).
We focus on remote regions over the Pacific, Atlantic, and Southern oceans from near the surface to similar to 12 km altitude range covering all four seasons. In general, the differences among model results can be greater than 1 order of magnitude. Comparing with observations, model-simulated SO 2 is generally low, whereas SO 4 is generally high.
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Simulated DMS concentrations near the sea surface exceed observed levels by a factor of 5 in most cases, suggesting potential overestimation of DMS emissions in all models. With GEOS model simulations of tagging emission from anthropogenic, biomass burning, volcanic, and oceanic sources, we find that anthropogenic emissions are the dominant source of sulfate aerosol (40 %-60 % of the total amount) in the ATom measurements at almost all altitudes, followed by volcanic emissions (18 %-32 %) and oceanic sources (16 %-32 %).
Similar source contributions can also be derived at broad ocean basins and on monthly scales, indicating the representativeness of ATom measurements for global ocean. Our work presents the first assessment of AeroCom sulfur study using ATom measurements, providing directions for improving sulfate simulations, which remain the largest uncertainty in radiative forcing estimates in aerosol climate models.
Links
Get the data
- Publisher page n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7f47t95 ↗
documentation · download · from data ucar edu
Where it is published
- data.ucar.edu /dataset/observationally-constrained-analysis-of-sulfur-cycle-i… ↗
National Center for Atmospheric Research dataset page
landing page · from data ucar edu
Catalogue records · 1
- CKAN API data.ucar.edu/api/3/action/package_show?id=542f4516-8659-4386-9f55-ba96b3f90… ↗
metadata API · from data ucar edu
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Ocean & Atmospheric Science
- Inferred from text
- Air pollution processes and air quality measurement 76%
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Center for Atmospheric Research | 542f4516-8659-4386-9f55-ba96b3f9030b | 13 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].anzsrc:field:370102 | enrichment · data ucar edu | taxonomy-embedding@1.1.0 | title+keywords+description (76%) |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:ocean-atmospheric | mapping · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| created_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /notes |
| publication_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 | /title |
| updated_date | source · data ucar edu | connector:data_ucar_edu@1.0.0 |