Contributions of natural and anthropogenic sources to ambient ammonia in the Athabasca Oil Sands and north-western Canada

Whaley, Cynthia H.; Makar, Paul A.; Shephard, Mark W.; Zhang, Leiming; Zhang, Junhua; Zheng, Qiong; Akingunola, Ayodeji; Wentworth, Gregory R.; Murphy, Jennifer G.; Kharol, Shailesh K.; Cady-Pereira, Karen E.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2011-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2011-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Atmospheric emissions from oil sands development and their...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-2011-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 3

Research article

|

13 Feb 2018

Research article |

| 13 Feb 2018

Contributions of natural and anthropogenic sources to ambient ammonia in the Athabasca Oil Sands and north-western Canada

Cynthia H. Whaley, Paul A. Makar, Mark W. Shephard, Leiming Zhang, Junhua Zhang, Qiong Zheng, Ayodeji Akingunola, Gregory R. Wentworth, Jennifer G. Murphy, Shailesh K. Kharol, and Karen E. Cady-Pereira

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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Contributions of natural and anthropogenic sources to ambient ammonia in the Athabasca Oil Sands and north-western Canada', Anonymous Referee #1, 02 Nov 2017
- AC2: 'Response to reviewer #1's comments', Cynthia Whaley, 20 Dec 2017
- AC3: 'Response to reviewer #3's comments', Cynthia Whaley, 20 Dec 2017
RC2: 'Comment on “Contributions of natural and anthropogenic sources to ambient ammonia in the Athabasca Oil Sands and north-western Canada” by Whaley et al.', Anonymous Referee #3, 14 Nov 2017
- AC1: 'Author's response to reviewer #3's serious concern', Cynthia Whaley, 28 Nov 2017
AC4: 'track-changes manuscript', Cynthia Whaley, 20 Dec 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Cynthia Whaley on behalf of the Authors (20 Dec 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (03 Jan 2018) by Jan W. Bottenheim

RR by Anonymous Referee #3 (04 Jan 2018)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (23 Jan 2018) by Jan W. Bottenheim

AR by Cynthia Whaley on behalf of the Authors (25 Jan 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (26 Jan 2018) by Jan W. Bottenheim

AR by Cynthia Whaley on behalf of the Authors (26 Jan 2018) Author's response Manuscript

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Short summary

Using a modified air quality forecasting model, we have found that a significant fraction (> 50 %) of ambient ammonia comes from re-emission from plants and soils in the broader Athabasca Oil Sands region and much of Alberta and Saskatchewan. We also found that about 20 % of ambient ammonia in Alberta and Saskatchewan came from forest fires in the summer of 2013. The addition of these two processes improved modelled ammonia, which was a motivating factor in undertaking this research.