An intercomparison of results from ferrous sulphate and photolytic converter techniques for measurements of NO(x) made during the NASA GTE/CITE 1 aircraft program

Two techniques designed for measurements of NO(x (NO + NO2) were intercompared during aircraft flights made in the spring of 1984 in the middle free troposphere over the eastern Pacific Ocean and southwestern U.S. One NO chemiluminescence instrument was equipped with a ferrous sulphate converter, another with a photolytic converter. The ferrous sulphate-equipped instrument was apparently much less specific for NO2. It registered levels about three times larger than the photolytic converter and gave NO2/NO ratios that were much larger than photochemical calculations would indicate as reasonable. Additionally, the results imply that active NO(x) was only 10-20 percent of the total odd nitrogen in the middle free troposphere.