Analysis of Tropospheric Carbon Monoxide over East Asia

Carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the important trace gases because its concentration in the troposphere directly influences the concentrations of tropospheric hydroxyl (OH), which controls the lifetimes of tropospheric trace gases. CO traces the transport of global and regional pollutants from industrial activities and large scale biomass burning. The distributions of CO were analyzed using the MOPITT data for East Asia, which were compared with the ozone distributions. In general, seasonal CO variations are characterized by a peak in the spring, which decrease in the summer. The monthly average for CO shows a similar profile to that for O$_3$. This fact clearly indicates that the high concentration of CO in the spring is possibly due to one of two causes: the photochemical production of CO in the troposphere, or the transport of the CO into East Asia. The seasonal cycles for CO and O$_3$ in East Asia are extensively influenced by the seasonal exchanges of different air mass types due to the Asian monsoon. The continental air masses contain high concentrations of O$_3$ and CO, due to the higher continental background concentrations, and sometimes to the contribution from regional pollution. In summer this transport pattern is reversed, where the Pacific marine air masses that prevail over Korea bring low concentrations of CO and O$_3$, which tend to give the apparent summer minimums.