Influence of air mass origin on the wet deposition of nitrogen to Tampa Bay, Florida—An eight-year study

Rainfall delivers on the average 10% of the total annual nitrogen load directly to Tampa Bay, based on precipitation monitoring at a National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) Atmospheric Integrated Research Monitoring Network (AIRMoN) site located adjacent to Tampa Bay in urban Tampa. We coupled the chemical analyses for 606 daily precipitation samples collected from 1996 to 2004 with corresponding air mass trajectory information to investigate if wet-deposited nitrogen originated from near versus removed source regions. Air mass trajectories were obtained using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) HYbrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model, and were classified into six trajectory categories by the direction of their approach to Tampa Bay. Rainfall nitrate and ammonium concentrations were significantly lower for over-water air mass trajectories than for over-land trajectories as expected, but contributed to 40% of the total wet-deposited nitrogen, a likely consequence of the higher frequency of rain events for these trajectories. Average rainfall nitrate concentrations were significantly higher for air masses that stagnated over the urbanized bay region. We estimated that local sources contributed or 25% of the total inorganic nitrogen wet-deposited to Tampa Bay.