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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-1204</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Reconstructed VOC emissions reveal hidden ozone precursors: Overlooked roles of primary OVOCs and unmeasured species</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yin</surname>
<given-names>Sijia</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yang</surname>
<given-names>Gan</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Li</surname>
<given-names>Chuang</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fu</surname>
<given-names>Qingyan</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2192-5654</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Huo</surname>
<given-names>Juntao</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Fu</surname>
<given-names>Yuruo</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yan</surname>
<given-names>Rengqi</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Yao</surname>
<given-names>Lei</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2680-1629</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wang</surname>
<given-names>Lin</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4905-3432</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Shanghai Key Laboratory of Air Quality and Environmental Health, Department of Environmental Science &amp; Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Center, Shanghai 200030, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>National Observations and Research Station for Wetland Ecosystems of the Yangtze Estuary, Shanghai 200438, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>IRDR International Center of Excellence on Risk Interconnectivity and Governance on Weather/Climate Extremes Impact and Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Shanghai Institute of Pollution Control and Ecological Security, Shanghai 200092, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>11</day>
<month>03</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>20</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Sijia Yin et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1204/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1204/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1204/egusphere-2026-1204.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-1204/egusphere-2026-1204.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) and oxygenated VOCs (OVOCs), are critical precursors of tropospheric ozone (O&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt;). However, conventional estimates of ozone formation potential (OFP) derived from observed VOC concentrations may introduce substantial biases, as they neglect the photochemical degradation of primary VOCs and the concurrent generation of secondary OVOCs during atmospheric transport. This study quantified the sources of ambient OVOCs at a suburban site in Shanghai, China during summer 2020 to reconstruct their initial emission concentrations. Together with the reconstructed initial concentrations of NMHCs, we estimated the OFP of freshly emitted VOCs. In addition, the sources and OFP of unmeasured VOCs were inferred by concurrent measurements of missing OH reactivity. Our results demonstrate that photochemical reactions substantially altered the composition and source characteristics of VOCs, leading to pronounced discrepancies in OFP estimation between observed and reconstructed initial concentrations. Specifically, OFP contributions from reconstructed NMHCs (52.3 %) were underestimated by 31.7 % when derived from observed concentrations for this site, whereas those from reconstructed OVOCs (33.2 %) were overestimated by 42.6 %. Reconstructed VOC emissions indicated that anthropogenic sources dominated total emissions (71.5 %), whereas OVOCs constituted a substantial fraction of total VOC emissions (40.8 %). Unmeasured VOCs, primarily of biogenic origin, contributed an additional 12.6 %. Collectively, OVOCs and unmeasured species exhibited OFP comparable to NMHCs, underscoring their critical role in O&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt; production and the necessity of incorporating these species into the design of comprehensive and effective O&lt;sub&gt;3&lt;/sub&gt; control strategies.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="20"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>National Natural Science Foundation of China</funding-source>
<award-id>21925601 and 22127811</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
</front>
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