Stratospheric Chlorine Processing After the Unprecedented Hunga Tonga Eruption
Name
Geophysical Research Letters - 2024 - Zhang - Stratospheric Chlorine Processing After the Unprecedented Hunga Tonga.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.67 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
52d0d802c7cbacba8926d4fa3fd0a643
Author(s)
Zhang, Jun
Wang, Peidong
Kinnison, Douglas
Solomon, Susan
Guan, Jian
Stone, Kane
Zhu, Yunqian
Date Issued
August 30, 2024
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
Zhang, J., Wang, P., Kinnison, D., Solomon, S., Guan, J., Stone, K., & Zhu, Y. (2024). Stratospheric chlorine processing after the unprecedented Hunga Tonga eruption. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2024GL108649
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Following the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai (HTHH) eruption in January 2022, significant reductions in stratospheric hydrochloric acid (HCl) were observed in the Southern Hemisphere mid‐latitudes during the latter half of 2022, suggesting potential chlorine activation. The objective of this study is to comprehensively understand the loss of HCl in the aftermath of HTHH. Satellite measurements and a global chemistry‐climate model are employed for the analysis. We find strong agreement of 2022 anomalies between the modeled and the measured data. The observed tracer‐tracer relations between nitrous oxide (N2O) and HCl indicate a significant role of chemical processing in the observed HCl reduction, especially during the austral winter of 2022. Further examining the roles of chlorine gas‐phase and heterogeneous chemistry, we find that heterogeneous chemistry emerges as the primary driver for the chemical loss of HCl, and the reaction between hypobromous acid (HOBr) and HCl on sulfate aerosols is the dominant loss process.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1029/2024gl108649
