Purdue Aircraft Data in Northern Alaska during spring 2022

CHemistry in the Arctic: Clouds, Halogens, and Aerosols (CHACHA) was a field campaign based out of Utqiaġvik, AK from February to April of 2022. The primary goals of CHACHA were to improve our understanding of the influence of open leads on atmospheric mixing, chemistry, and cloud formation; to improve our understanding of the spatial distribution (horizontally and vertically) of bromine chemistry – largely through bromine monoxide (BrO) measurements; and to improve our understanding of the influence of nitrogen oxides (NOx) on bromine chemistry using the large emissions downwind of oil and gas activity to probe this chemistry. As the Arctic continues to warm at several times the global average rate we expect anthropogenic activity (e.g., oil and gas expansion, shipping, tourism) to continue increasing, leading to larger emissions of NOx. During CHACHA we collected data using a surface measurement site, the University of Wyoming King Air aircraft, and the Purdue University Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (ALAR) aircraft. This dataset represents a subset of the data collected from ALAR. This subset is only the data used in Hajny et al., 2024 focused on emissions of NOx, carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4) from the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field on the North Slope of Alaska. Prudhoe Bay was the largest oil field in Alaska as of 2022, representing approximately 49% of the oil production and 84% of the natural gas production for the state according to EIA data, though it is also worth noting the state’s production of oil has been in steady decline since its peak in 1988. Measurements were used in both mass balance and emission ratio calculations.