Abstract
The hydroxyl free radical, OH, is sunlight's prime agent in maintaining the trace-gas composition of the Earth's troposphere, and at the same time serves as the catalyst responsible for many of the symptoms of urban and regional air pollution. We have used low-pressure fluorescence to measure the ambient concentration of this radical during two continuous 36-hour periods in early summer and late autumn, 1985. The summer and autumn maxima were 3 × l06 and 4 × l05 molecules cm−3 (10−13 and 2 × l0−14 relative to air), respectively. The observed concentrations lie within the rather large latitude of Current estimates based on trace-gas lifetimes or atmospheric photochemical models.
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Hard, T., Chan, C., Mehrabzadeh, A. et al. Diurnal cycle of tropospheric OH. Nature 322, 617–620 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1038/322617a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/322617a0
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