Non Methane Hydrocarbons variability in Athens during winter-time: The role of traffic and heating
Abstract. Non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) play an important role in atmospheric chemistry, contributing to ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation. They can also serve as tracers for various sources such as traffic, solvents, heating and vegetation. The current work presents, for the first time to our knowledge, time-resolved, uninterrupted data of NMHCs, from two to six carbon atoms, during a period of five months (mid-October 2015 to mid-February 2016) in the Great Athens Area (GAA), Greece. The measured NMHC levels are among the highest reported in literature for the Mediterranean area and the majority of the compounds demonstrates a remarkable day to day variability. Their levels increase by up to factor of four from autumn (October–November) to winter (December–February). Local meteorology and especially wind speed seems to control the variability of NMHC levels, with an increase up to a factor of 10 occurring under low wind speed (