Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 31, 2026

Extraction and Characterization of Surfactants from Atmospheric Aerosols
Published on: April 21, 2017
Enhanced upper tropical tropospheric COS: impact on the stratospheric aerosol layer
J Notholt1, Z Kuang, C P Rinsland
1University of Bremen, D-28334 Bremen, Germany. jnotholt@iup.physik.uni-bremen.de
Abstract:
Carbonyl sulfide (COS) is considered to be a major source of the stratospheric sulfate aerosol during periods of volcanic quiescence. We measured COS at the tropical tropopause and find mixing ratios to be 20 to 50% larger than are assumed in models. The enhanced COS levels are correlated with high concentrations of biomass-burning pollutants like carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN). The analysis of backward trajectories and global maps of fire statistics suggest that biomass-burning emissions transported upward by deep convection are the source of the enhanced COS in the upper tropical troposphere.
Related Concept Videos
The Sulfur Cycle
What is Weather?
Global Climate Change
Atomic Spectroscopy: Effects of Temperature
At thermal equilibrium, the relative populations of excited and ground state atoms can be estimated using the Maxwell–Boltzmann distribution. For example, an increase in temperature from...
Atomic Emission Spectroscopy: Interference
Microbes and Climate Change

