Mixing of Atmospheric Gas Concentrations

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Abstract
Atmospheric gas concentrations were measured at 1 s intervals in the upper troposphere during a flight through and near the anvil of a storm. The observed very high correlations between the concentrations of CO and CH4 are interpreted as arising from the mixing of two distinct air masses with differing concentrations of each species, and is due to the nearly identical diffusivities of CO and CH4 in air. We find that the correlations depend on the period over which each concentration measurement was made. Correlations in measurements made over short periods decay with time, while correlations over larger scales remain high. We interpret this using a simple mixing model.