FAVOR-HALO: Fast Analysis of Volatile ORganics with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) on HALO

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We propose to measure volatile oxygenated and nonoxygenated organic compounds aboard HALO using a novel fast online gas chromatograph / mass spectrometer. Volatile organic compounds are important local and regional atmospheric pollutants because of their potential impacts on human health, crops and plants by forming photochemical oxidants. Oxygenated volatile organic compounds are directly emitted into the troposphere or formed from nonoxygenated compounds. Despite their strong influence on atmospheric processes, concentration data of these species are still rare due to analytical difficulties. During the OMO demonstration mission, the HALO aircraft will sample rapidly convected air parcels from polluted regions and more processed air from North America with oxygenated volatiles being enriched relative to their precursors. Measuring volatile organic compounds in the free troposphere during the OMO demonstration mission will help to constrain radical chemistry in different air parcels, evaluate the extent of photochemical processing of air parcels or identify air parcels from different origin.