The York Research Database

We present a global simulation of tropospheric iodine chemistry within the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model. This includes organic and inorganic iodine sources, standard gas-phase iodine chemistry and simplified higher iodine oxide (I₂O_X, X = 2, 3, 4) chemistry, photolysis, deposition and parametrised heterogeneous reactions. In comparisons with recent Iodine Oxide (IO) observations the iodine simulation shows an average bias of +66 % available surface observations in the marine boundary layer (outside of polar regions), and of +73 % within the free troposphere (350 <hPa <900) over the eastern Pacific. Iodine emissions (3.8 Tg yr^minus;1) are overwhelmingly dominated by the inorganic ocean source, with 76 % of this emission from Hypoiodous acid (HOI). HOI is also found to be the dominant iodine species in terms of global tropospheric I_Y burden (contributing up to 70 . The iodine chemistry leads to a significant global tropospheric O₃ burden decrease (9.0 compared to standard GEOS-Chem (v9-2). The iodine-driven O_X loss rate (748 Tg O_X yr^minus;1) is by photolysis of HOI (78 , photolysis of OIO (21 , and reaction of IO and BrO (1 . Increases in global mean OH concentrations (1.8 by increased conversion of hydroperoxy radicals exceeds the decrease in OH primary production from the reduced O₃ concentration. We perform sensitivity studies on a range parameters and conclude that the simulation is sensitive to choices in parameterisation of heterogeneous uptake, ocean surface iodide, and I₂O_X (X = 2, 3, 4) photolysis. The new iodine chemistry combines with previously implemented bromine chemistry to yield a total bromine and iodine driven tropospheric O₃ burden decrease of 14.4 % compared to a simulation without iodine and bromine chemistry in the model. This is a significant impact and so halogen chemistry needs to be considered in climate and air quality models.