Study of different Carbon Bond 6 (CB6) mechanisms by using a concentration sensitivity analysis

Since the year 2010, different versions of the Carbon Bond 6 (CB6) mechanism have been developed to accurately estimate the contribution to air pollution by the chemistry. In order to better understand the differences in simulation results brought about by the modifications between different versions of the CB6 mechanism, in the present study, we investigated the behavior of three different CB6 mechanisms (CB6r1, CB6r2 and CB6r3) in simulating ozone (O-3), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and formaldehyde (HCHO) under two different emission conditions by applying a concentration sensitivity analysis in a box model. The results show that when the surface emission is weak, the O-3 level predicted by CB6r1 is approximately 7 ppb higher than that predicted by CB6r2 and CB6r3, specifically due to the change in the sink of acyl peroxy radicals with high-order carbons (i.e., species CXO3) in the mechanism and the difference in the ozone dependence on the isoprene emission. In contrast, although CB6r1 estimates higher values of NOx and HCHO than the other two mechanisms at an early stage of the simulation, the levels of NOx and HCHO estimated by these three CB6 mechanisms at the end of the 7 d simulation are mostly similar, when the surface emission is weak. After the increase in the surface emission, the simulated profiles of O-3, NOx and HCHO obtained by CB6r2 and CB6r3 were found to be nearly the same during the simulation period, but CB6r1 tends to estimate substantially higher values than CB6r2 and CB6r3. The deviation between the O-3 levels provided by CB6r1 and the other two CB6 mechanisms (i.e., CB6r2 and CB6r3) was found to be enlarged compared with the weak-emission scenario because of the weaker dependence of ozone on the emission of isoprene in CB6r1 than those in CB6r2 and CB6r3 in this scenario. Moreover, HCHO predicted by CB6r1 was found to be larger than those predicted by CB6r2 and CB6r3, which is caused by an enhanced dependence of HCHO on the emission of isoprene in CB6r1. Regarding NOx, it was found that CB6r1 gives a higher value than the other two mechanisms, which is caused by the relatively stronger connection between the NOx prediction and the release of NO and NO2 in CB6r1 due to the change in the product of the reaction between isoprene and NO3 in CB6r1. Consequently, more emitted NOx is involved in the reaction system denoted by CB6r1, which enables a following NOx formation and thus a higher NOx prediction of CB6r1.

Automated summary

In this study, the performance of three different versions of the CB6 mechanism in simulating ozone, nitrogen oxides, and formaldehyde under two different emission conditions was compared. It was found that significant differences existed in the predictions of O3 between CB6r1 and CB6r2/CB6r3 when surface emissions were weak, while the predictions of NOx and HCHO were largely similar among the three versions. As surface emissions increased, the profiles of O3, NOx, and HCHO predicted by CB6r2 and CB6r3 became similar, while CB6r1 consistently estimated higher values. The discrepancies between the versions in ozone levels were more pronounced under weak-emission conditions, primarily due to different dependencies on isoprene emission.