ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-11-4657-2011 VOC reactivity and its effect on ozone production during the HaChi summer campaign Ran L. 1 Zhao C. S. 1 Xu W. Y. 1 Lu X. Q. 2 Han M. 2 Lin W. L. 3 Yan P. 3 Xu X. B. 3 Deng Z. Z. 1 Ma N. 1 Liu P. F. 1 Yu J. 4 5 Liang W. D. 4 Chen L. L. 4 Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China Tianjin Academy of Environmental Sciences, Tianjin, China Key Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry, Center for Atmosphere Watch and Services, Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, China Wuqing Meteorological Bureau of Tianjin, Tianjin, China now at: Tanggu Meteorological Bureau of Tianjin, Tianjin, China 18 05 2011 11 10 4657 4667 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/4657/2011/acp-11-4657-2011.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/11/4657/2011/acp-11-4657-2011.pdf

Measurements of ozone and its precursors conducted within the HaChi (Haze in China) project in summer 2009 were analyzed to characterize volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and their effects on ozone photochemical production at a suburban site in the North China Plain (NCP). Ozone episodes, during which running 8-h average ozone concentrations exceeding 80 ppbv lasted for more than 4 h, occurred on about two thirds of the observational days during the 5-week field campaign. This suggests continuous ozone exposure risks in this region in the summer. Average concentrations of nitrogen oxides (NO<sub>x</sub>) and VOCs are about 20 ppbv and 650 ppbC, respectively. On average, total VOC reactivity is dominated by anthropogenic VOCs. The contribution of biogenic VOCs to total ozone-forming potential, however, is also considerable in the daytime. Key species associated with ozone photochemical production are 2-butenes (18 %), isoprene (15 %), trimethylbenzenes (11 %), xylenes (8.5 %), 3-methylhexane (6 %), n-hexane (5 %) and toluene (4.5 %). Formation of ozone is found to be NO<sub>x</sub>-limited as indicated by measured VOCs/NO<sub>x</sub> ratios and further confirmed by a sensitivity study using a photochemical box model NCAR_MM. The Model simulation suggests that ozone production is also sensitive to changes in VOC reactivity under the NO<sub>x</sub>-limited regime, although this sensitivity depends strongly on how much NO<sub>x</sub> is present.

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