This is a three-year research study of the atmospheric cycles of ozone, reactive nitrogen, and sulfur in the troposphere. The project will be comprised of three related investigations focussing on specific aspects of the global-tropospheric-chemical system that are presently poorly understood and are of fundamental importance to the regional and/or global environment. One investigation will focus on understanding the genesis of ozone episodes in rural areas of the southern United States and will make use of the sizeable air quality database that is being gathered by the Southern Oxidants Study. A second investigation will be aimed at better understanding the chemistry of sea salt aerosols over the remote marine atmosphere and their effect on the cycle of atmospheric S and the production of climatically important sulfate particles and cloud condensation nuclei. A third investigation will attempt to elucidate the processes responsible for determining the global distributions and abundance of reactive N compounds and ozone through the application a three-dimensional Global Chemical Transport Model. This last study will represent a continued collaborative effort between scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology and NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
