Department of Earth System Science

Uptake and removal of soluble trace gases and aerosols by precipitation represents a major uncertainty in the processes that control the vertical distribution of atmospheric trace species. Model representations of precipitation scavenging vary greatly in their complexity, and most are divorced from the physics of precipitation formation and transformation. Here, we describe a new large-scale precipitation scavenging algorithm, developed for the UCI chemistry-transport model (UCI-CTM), that represents a step toward a more physical treatment of scavenging through improvements in the formulation of the removal in sub-gridscale cloudy and ambient environments and their overlap within the column as well as ice phase uptake of soluble species. The UCI algorithm doubles the lifetime of HNO₃ in the upper troposphere relative to a scheme with commonly used fractional cloud cover assumptions and ice uptake determined by Henry's Law and provides better agreement with HNO₃ observations. We find that the process of ice phase scavenging of HNO₃ is a critical component of the tropospheric O₃ budget, but that NO_x and O₃ mixing ratios are relatively insensitive to large differences in the removal rate. Ozone abundances are much more sensitive to the lifetime of HNO₄, highlighting the need for better understanding of its interactions with ice and for additional observational constraints.