HR: 16:15h
AN: A42F-02 INVITED     [PDF]
TI: Compound Specific Stable Isotope Ratio Measurements, a new Tool to Study the Atmospheric Chemistry of Volatile Organic Compounds
AU: * Rudolph, J
EM: rudolphj@yorku.ca
AF: Centre for Atmospheric Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada
AB: Stable isotope ratio measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOC) are a relatively new, but rapidly developing method, which has great potential to improve our understanding of the atmospheric chemistry of VOC. The dependence between measured stable isotope ratio, atmospheric reactions, atmospheric mixing and transport, and isotope ratio of emissions is rather complex, especially for VOC with atmospheric residence times shorter than the timescales required for global scale mixing. However, for a number of VOC the problem is simplified due to a, compared to the variability of the emissions, large isotope fractionation due to atmospheric removal reactions. Under these conditions isotope ratio measurements can be used to determine the average degree of atmospheric processing of the studied VOC if the kinetic isotope effects for the atmospheric reactions and the stable isotope ratio of the emissions are known. In this presentation the possibilities, conditions, and limitations for the use of stable isotope ratios of VOC are discussed and examples are presented. This includes deficits in our present knowledge as well as new possibilities for the extension of stable isotope ratio measurements for studies of the atmospheric chemistry of VOC.
DE: 0365 Troposphere--composition and chemistry
DE: 0368 Troposphere--constituent transport and chemistry
DE: 1040 Isotopic composition/chemistry
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting