The study shows how anthropogenic emissions of halogens, such as chlorine or bromine, accelerate the oxidation and deposition of atmospheric mercury and, consequently, increase exposure to their effects on people and ecosystems.

The work, led by IQF researchers, reveals that the recently discovered anthropogenic emissions of reactive halogens (chlorine, bromine and iodine) increase the oxidation of mercury, a potent neurotoxin, over continental areas. The oxidation chemistry of mercury in the atmosphere is key for the deposition of atmospheric mercury to the Earth's surface, since it produces soluble oxidized mercury compounds that are deposited, mainly, by precipitation in the form of rain. This process results in higher deposition of mercury near the emission points, thus increasing the exposure to mercury of the populations near these locations.…

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The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) is a 182-year-old British scientific society. The FRSC (Fellow of the RSC) designation is awarded to elected members who have made significant contributions to Chemistry.
The work of Alfonso Saiz-López, in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Group of the IQF, focuses on determining the importance of chemical processes at a molecular scale in the global climate, before and during the Anthropocene.
 

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The climatic importance of the gases exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere has focused mainly on the exchange of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Less attention has been paid to ocean emissions of reactive gases into the atmosphere, where they initiate chemical reactions that can indirectly affect Earth's radiative balance and climate.
One such group of reactive gases are the so-called short-lived halogen compounds (SLHs), compounds of chlorine, bromine and iodine which last for no longer than six months in the atmosphere. These molecules are naturally emitted from oceans, polar ice, and the biosphere. Measurements over the past two decades measurements have shown their ubiquitous presence in the global atmosphere.
The study used a state-of-the-art Earth system model developed at the IQF-CSIC to quantify…

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Photo credit: Michael Gutsch

This study reports halogen oxide measurements in the central Arctic Ocean carried out during the ship-based Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition. The observations were made by the IQFR MAX-DOAS instrument as part of an international collaboration during the MOSAiC expedition, the largest scientific expedition to the Arctic in history, conducted on the German research icebreaker Polarsten, which set sail from Norway, to spend a year drifting through the Arctic Ocean - trapped in the ice. The goal of the MOSAic expedition was to take the closest look ever at the Arctic as the epicenter of global warming and to gain fundamental insights that are key to better understand global climate change. Hundreds of researchers from 20 countries were involved in this expedition.

Surface…

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The atmosphere of Venus has abundant SO₂ and sulfuric acid particles. The ultraviolet destruction of SO₂ is expected to produce sulfur particles, built up from atomic S to S₂, then S₄ and finally S₈.

Here we explore how this process is initiated, how S₂ is formed. One possibility is to form S₂ from two sulfur atoms, that is, reaction of S and S. Molecules of S₂ and S₂ can then combine to form S₄, and so on. Sulfur particles can form either by condensation of S₈ or by condensation of S₂, S₄ and other allotropes which then rearrange to form condensed S₈. This paper explores the initial S₂ formation by an alternative pathway by using computational chemistry.

The results suggest a new pathway for S₂ formation, the SO and S₂O, which is much faster than combining two S atoms to make S₂, thereby providing a faster route to sulfur particle formation and…

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Atmospheric SO3 is an important intermediate in the formation of sulfuric acid, which is a critical component of acid rain, the stratospheric aerosol layer, new particle formation and secondary aerosol. The formation of gaseous H2SO4 proceeds through the reaction of SO3 + 2H2O. While this reaction has been subject of several laboratory studies, additional removal mechanisms of SO3 are largely unknown and are the motivation of this work.
The new SO3 + HONO2 reaction can potentially compete well with the SO3 + 2H2O reaction between 25 and 35 kms in the atmosphere, as well as the OH + HONO2 reaction. We also suggest the potential for SO3 reactions with organic acids to generate organosulfates without the need for heterogeneous chemistry.
 

Bo Long, Yu Xia, Javier Carmona-García, Juan Carlos Gómez Martín, John M. C. Plane, Alfonso Saiz-Lopez, Daniel…

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Iodine chemistry is an important driver of new particle formation in the marine and polar boundary layers. There are, however, conflicting views about how iodine gas-to-particle conversion proceeds. Laboratory studies indicate that the photooxidation of iodine produces iodine oxides (IxOy), which are well-known particle precursors. By contrast, nitrate anion chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS) observations in field and environmental chamber studies have been interpreted as evidence of a dominant role of iodic acid (HIO3) in iodine-driven particle formation.
These experimental results, aided by theoretical calculations, solve these discrepancies by showing that both IxOy and HIO3 are involved in atmospheric new particle formation. I2Oy molecules (y = 2, 3, and 4) react with nitrate core ions to generate mass spectra similar to those obtained…

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Methane (CH₄) is a greenhouse gas with the second-largest contribution to global warming after CO₂. Unlike the inert gas CO₂, CH₄ actively participates in atmospheric chemistry. A better understanding of the global CH₄ budget (i.e., sources and sinks) is vital to constrain its atmospheric levels and radiative forcing in the 21^st century, as well as to guide climate mitigation efforts, e.g., policies to fulfil the Paris agreement. Previous studies focus on CH₄ sources with less attention on its losses, which have been reported to be the direct reactions with the OH radical (the dominant sink) and Chlorine atoms (Cl). Current chemistry-climate models tend to underestimate the lifetime of CH₄, suggesting uncertainties in its sources and sinks.

Over the past decades, a large and growing body of observational evidence has demonstrated the ubiquitous existence of…

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