Reassessing the photochemical production of methanol from peroxy radical self and cross reactions using the STOCHEM-CRI global chemistry and transport model

Methanol (CH3OH) is an oxygenated volatile organic compound (VOC) and one of the most abundant species present in the troposphere. The mass of CH3OH in the atmospheric reservoir, its annual mass flux from sources to sinks, and its global budget have been investigated using STOCHEM-CRI, a global three-dimensional chemistry transport model. Our study shows that the global burden of methanol is 5 Tg. The atmospheric life-time of CH3OH is found to be 6.1 days which falls within the range of previous modelling studies. The impact of peroxy radicals on the photochemical production of CH3OH has been studied and suggests that NMVOCs (non-methane Volatile Organic Compounds) are an important source of both peroxy radicals and CH3OH. The photochemical production routes of CH3OH are found to be 48 Tg/yr, which are higher than the previous studies and contributes significantly to the total global methanol sources of 287 Tg/yr. An additional CH3OH production of 8.2 Tg/yr from the reaction of methyl peroxy radicals (CH3O2) with hydroxyl radicals (OH) could be a significant additional source of CH3OH particularly over the tropical oceans which would lead to a revision of the global sources and life cycle of CH3OH.