Impacts of six potential HONO sources on HOx budgets and SOA formation during a wintertime heavy haze period in the North China Plain

Abstract The Weather Research and Forecasting/Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model updated with six potential HONO sources (i.e., traffic, soil, biomass burning and indoor emissions, and heterogeneous reactions on aerosol and ground surfaces) was used to quantify the impact of the six potential HONO sources on the production and loss rates of OH and HO 2 radicals and the concentrations of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) in the Beijing-Tianjin-Heibei (BTH) region of China during a winter heavy haze period of Nov. 29–Dec. 3, 2017. The updated WRF-Chem model well simulated the observed HONO concentrations at the Wangdu site, especially in the daytime, and well reproduced the observed diurnal variations of regional-mean O 3 in the BTH region. The traffic emission source was an important HONO source during nighttime but not significant during daytime, heterogeneous reactions on ground/aerosol surfaces were important during nighttime and daytime. We found that the six potential HONO sources led to a significant enhancement in the dominant production and loss rates of HO x on the wintertime heavy haze and nonhaze days (particularly on the heavy haze day), an enhancement of 5–25 μg m −3 (75–200%) in the ground SOA in the studied heavy haze event, and an enhancement of 2–15 μg m −3 in the meridional-mean SOA on the heavy haze day, demonstrating that the six potential HONO sources accelerate the HO x cycles and aggravate haze events. HONO was the key precursor of primary OH in the BTH region in the studied wintertime period, and the photolysis of HONO produced a daytime mean OH production rate of 2.59 ppb h −1 on the heavy haze day, much higher than that of 0.58 ppb h −1 on the nonhaze day. Anthropogenic SOA dominated in the BTH region in the studied wintertime period, and its main precursors were xylenes (42%), BIGENE (31%) and toluene (21%).