Topic
Photochemical aging of plumes, radical-driven VOC oxidation and aerosol bleaching.
University of Basel researchers found that fine particles from a small jet engine gained oxidative potential after simulated atmospheric aging. Particles from a marine diesel engine tested alongside it stayed largely stable.
Reality
Authors of a Reviews of Geophysics paper argue wildfire smoke keeps reacting as it ages, so downwind air can carry pollutants the fire never emitted. Air-quality forecasts and exposure estimates improve when they model that aging, the authors write.
Reality
Ana Yanez-Serrano and colleagues estimate in a review that water-soluble VOCs account for 21.7 percent of the annual wet-deposition carbon flux, a term most atmospheric carbon budgets leave out. The figure is a synthesis assembled in a review.
Reality
Heidelberg chemists report that iron and reactive oxygen species cleave lignin's methoxy groups into methanol and then formaldehyde at room temperature in water. In living soil, microbes eat the methanol before it can reach the air.
Reality
UC Riverside chemists tracked Criegee intermediates as ozone attacked isoprene, replacing inference from leftover products with measured kinetics. The rate constants themselves are not yet public.
Reality