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Non-traditional anthropogenic sources, particularly cooking activities, emit a complex mixture of oxygenated volatile organic compounds (OVOCs), including reactive long-chain (C6 to C12) aldehydes. To quantify their air quality impacts, we integrated recent field observations into high-resolution emission inventories and utilized Lagrangian box modeling in the Los Angeles Basin. Results show that cooking VOCs drive a substantial fraction of urban ozone formation, accounting for roughly 28% of the anthropogenic ozone enhancement and rivaling contributions from fossil fuels and volatile chemical products (VCPs). To investigate the secondary chemistry of unique cooking markers, we focus on long-chain aldehydes. We use SAPHIR-CHANEL chamber experiments to develop explicit secondary oxidation mechanisms for these tracers. Independently, multi-platform ambient observations (AEROMMA, SUNVEx) across major North American cities confirm the generation of secondary products that exhibit mass spectral fingerprints consistent with these mechanistic pathways. These observed products include aldehyde nitrates, hydroxy nitrates, and peracid nitrates. Finally, we evaluate peroxy radical (RO2) fate by implementing the updated mechanisms into photochemical box models and comparing the output directly to these atmospheric measurements. These comparisons demonstrate that unimolecular RO2 isomerization is highly competitive with bimolecular NO reactions, establishing the long-chain aldehyde system as a valuable observational framework to investigate the complex radical chemistry in modern urban atmospheres.
Dr. Chelsea Stockwell is a research chemist at the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory. She obtained her degree in 2016 from the University of Montana, where she worked with Dr. Robert Yokelson characterizing emissions from biomass burning sources. Since then, her work has focused on a variety of topics, including quantifying methane emissions using small aircraft/UAVs, evaluating wildfire remote sensing carbon estimates, and investigating understudied urban VOCs and their contribution to urban air pollution.
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