Atmospheric oxidation in the presence of clouds during the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) study

The Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) study in 2012 provided the environment, platforms, and instrumentation to test oxidation chemistry around deep convective clouds and their impacts downwind. Measurements on the NASA DC-8 air-craft included those of the radicals hydroxyl (OH) and hydroperoxyl (HO2), OH reactivity, and more than 100 other chemical species and atmospheric properties.

OH, HO2, and OH reactivity were compared to photochemical models, some with and some without simplified heterogeneous chemistry, to test the understanding of atmospheric oxidation as encoded in the model. In general, the agreement between the observed and modeled OH, HO2, and OH reactivity was within the combined uncertainties for the model without heterogeneous chemistry and the model including heterogeneous chemistry with small OH and HO2 uptake consistent with laboratory studies.