Mapping the Oxidizing Capacity of the Global Remote Troposphere

The hydroxyl radical (OH) governs the atmospheric lifetime of countless trace gases. Observations are crucial for constraining the distribution and drivers of tropospheric OH; however, there currently exists a scale-gap between the globally-integrated view from budget analysis of long-lived emissions (e.g. methyl chloroform) and the process-level details afforded by direct OH measurements. Here, we synthesize in situ measurements from NASA’s Atmospheric Tomography Mission (ATom) with formaldehyde retrievals from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) to map OH concentrations and production rates throughout the global remote troposphere. This analysis complements existing methods for OH quantification and has the potential to provide new insights on the variability of tropospheric oxidizing capacity across spatial and temporal gradients.