scholarly journals Ozone reservoir layers in a coastal environment – a case study in Southern Taiwan

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1719-1754
Author(s):  
C.-H. Lin ◽  
Y.-L. Wu ◽  
C.-H. Lai

Abstract. The air layer between the nocturnal boundary layer and the top of the daily mixing layer in an ozone-polluted area is known to serve as an ozone reservoir since the ozone that is produced in the previous daytime mixing layer can be well preserved throughout the night in the air layer. Ozone reservoir layers are capable of enhancing surface ozone accumulation on the following day. However, our knowledge of the characteristics of ozone reservoir layers and their effects on the daily ozone accumulations is limited. In this work, ozone reservoir layers were experimentally investigated at a coastal, near-mountain site in Southern Taiwan, 30 km away from the coastlines. Tethered ozone soundings were performed to obtain vertical profiles of ozone and meteorological variables during a four-day ozone episode in November 2006. Observation-based methods are adopted to evaluate the influences of the ozone reservoir layers on the surface ozone accumulation during the four-day ozone episode. Ozone reservoir layers were found to develop every evening with a depth of 1200–1400 m. Ozone concentrations within the reservoir layers reached over 140 parts per billion (ppb). From each evening to midnight, the size of the ozone reservoir layer and the ozone concentration inside dramatically changed. As a result, a concentrated, elevated ozone reservoir layer formed with a depth of 400 m at 800–1200 m every midnight. For the rest of each night, the elevated ozone reservoir layer gradually descended until it reached 500–900 m in the next morning. Local circulations and nocturnal subsidence are responsible for the observed evolution. The ozone concentration at the study site was maximal at 15:00–17:00 LT daily because of the addition of the daily produced ozone on the preceding day. Hourly downward mixing ozone concentrations due to the ozone reservoir layers can be as high as 35–45 ppb/h in the late morning. The contribution of the ozone carried over from the preceding day can be 75–85 ppb, which contributes over 50% to the daily ozone pollution as compared with ozone produced on the study day.

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 4439-4452 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.-H. Lin ◽  
Y.-L. Wu ◽  
C.-H. Lai

Abstract. The air layer between the nocturnal boundary layer and the top of the daily mixing layer in an ozone-polluted area is known to serve as an ozone reservoir since the ozone that is produced in the mixing layer on the preceding day is effectively preserved throughout the night in the air layer. Ozone reservoir layers existing at night can enhance the accumulation of surface ozone on the following day. However, our knowledge of the characteristics of ozone reservoir layers and their effects on the daily ozone accumulations is limited. In this work, ozone reservoir layers were experimentally investigated at a coastal, near-mountain site in southern Taiwan, 30 km away from the coastline. Tethered ozone soundings were performed to obtain vertical profiles of ozone and meteorological variables during a four-day ozone episode in November 2006. Observation-based methods are adopted to evaluate the effects of the ozone reservoir layers on the surface ozone accumulation during the four-day ozone episode. Ozone reservoir layers were found to develop every evening with a depth of 1200–1400 m. Ozone concentrations within the reservoir layers reached over 140 parts per billion (ppb). From each evening to midnight, the size of the ozone reservoir layer and the ozone concentration inside dramatically changed. As a result, a concentrated, elevated ozone reservoir layer formed with a depth of 400 m at 800–1200 m every midnight. For the rest of each night, the elevated ozone reservoir layer gradually descended until it reached 500–900 m in the next morning. The observed ozone reservoir layer is formed by the invasion of a cool, marine air mass into a relatively warm, ozone-rich mixing layer in the evening. The descending is related to nocturnal coastal subsidence as well. The ozone concentration at the study site was maximal at 15:00–17:00 LT daily because of the addition of the daily produced ozone on the preceding day. The rate of increase of surface ozone concentration due to the downward mixing of the ozone in the ozone reservoir layers can be as high as 12–24 ppb/h in the late morning. The contribution of the ozone carried over from the preceding day can be 60–85 ppb, which contributes over 50% to the daily ozone pollution as compared with ozone produced on the study day.


Author(s):  
An Zhang ◽  
Jinhuang Lin ◽  
Wenhui Chen ◽  
Mingshui Lin ◽  
Chengcheng Lei

Long-term exposure to ozone pollution will cause severe threats to residents’ physical and mental health. Ground-level ozone is the most severe air pollutant in China’s Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD). It is of great significance to accurately reveal the spatial–temporal distribution characteristics of ozone pollution exposure patterns. We used the daily maximum 8-h ozone concentration data from PRD’s 55 air quality monitoring stations in 2015 as input data. We used six models of STK and ordinary kriging (OK) for the simulation of ozone concentration. Then we chose a better ozone pollution prediction model to reveal the ozone exposure characteristics of the PRD in 2015. The results show that the Bilonick model (BM) model had the highest simulation precision for ozone in the six models for spatial–temporal kriging (STK) interpolation, and the STK model’s simulation prediction results are significantly better than the OK model. The annual average ozone concentrations in the PRD during 2015 showed a high spatial variation in the north and east and low in the south and west. Ozone concentrations were relatively high in summer and autumn and low in winter and spring. The center of gravity of ozone concentrations tended to migrate to the north and west before moving to the south and then finally migrating to the east. The ozone’s spatial autocorrelation was significant and showed a significant positive correlation, mainly showing high-high clustering and low-low clustering. The type of clustering undergoes temporal migration and conversion over the four seasons, with spatial autocorrelation during winter the most significant.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Jahn ◽  
Elke Hertig

<p>Air pollution and heat events present two major health risks, both already independently posing a significant threat to human health and life. High levels of ground-level ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) and air temperature often coincide due to the underlying physical relationships between both variables. The most severe health outcome is in general associated with the co-occurrence of both hazards (e.g. Hertig et al. 2020), since concurrent elevated levels of temperature and ozone concentrations represent a twofold exposure and can lead to a risk beyond the sum of the individual effects. Consequently, in the current contribution, a compound approach considering both hazards simultaneously as so-called ozone-temperature (o-t-)events is chosen by jointly analyzing elevated ground-level ozone concentrations and air temperature levels in Europe.</p><p>Previous studies already point to the fact that the relationship of underlying synoptic and meteorological drivers with one or both of these health stressors as well as the correlation between both variables vary with the location of sites and seasons (e.g. Otero et al. 2016; Jahn, Hertig 2020). Therefore, a hierarchical clustering analysis is applied to objectively divide the study domain in regions of homogeneous, similar ground-level ozone and temperature characteristics (o-t-regions). Statistical models to assess the synoptic and large-scale meteorological mechanisms which represent main drivers of concurrent o-t-events are developed for each identified o-t-region.</p><p>Compound elevated ozone concentration and air temperature events are expected to become more frequent due to climate change in many parts of Europe (e.g. Jahn, Hertig 2020; Hertig 2020). Statistical projections of potential frequency shifts of compound o-t-events until the end of the twenty-first century are assessed using the output of Earth System Models (ESMs) from the sixth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6).</p><p><em>Hertig, E. (2020) Health-relevant ground-level ozone and temperature events under future climate change using the example of Bavaria, Southern Germany. Air Qual. Atmos. Health. doi: 10.1007/s11869-020-00811-z</em></p><p><em>Hertig, E., Russo, A., Trigo, R. (2020) Heat and ozone pollution waves in Central and South Europe- characteristics, weather types, and association with mortality. Atmosphere. doi: 10.3390/atmos11121271</em></p><p><em>Jahn, S., Hertig, E. (2020) Modeling and projecting health‐relevant combined ozone and temperature events in present and future Central European climate. Air Qual. Atmos. Health. doi: 10.1007/s11869‐020‐009610</em></p><p><em>Otero N., Sillmann J., Schnell J.L., Rust H.W., Butler T. (2016) Synoptic and meteorological drivers of extreme ozone concentrations over Europe. Environ Res Lett. doi: 10.1088/ 1748-9326/11/2/024005</em></p>


2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (19) ◽  
pp. 5889-5898 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Lin ◽  
X. Xu ◽  
X. Zhang ◽  
J. Tang

Abstract. Regional ozone pollution has become one of the top environmental concerns in China, especially in those economically vibrant and densely populated regions, such as North China region including Beijing. To address this issue, surface ozone and ancillary data over the period 2004–2006 from the Shangdianzi Regional Background Station in north China were analyzed. Due to the suitable location and valley topography of the site, transport of pollutants from the North China Plain was easily observed and quantified according to surface wind directions. Regional (polluted) and background (clean) ozone concentrations were obtained by detailed statistic analysis. Contribution of pollutants from North China Plain to surface ozone at SDZ was estimated by comparing ozone concentrations observed under SW wind conditions and that under NE wind conditions. The average daily accumulated ozone contribution was estimated to be 240 ppb·hr. The average regional contributions to surface ozone at SDZ from the North China Plain were 21.8 ppb for the whole year, and 19.2, 28.9, 25.0, and 10.0 ppb for spring, summer, autumn, and winter, respectively. The strong ozone contribution in summer led to disappearance of the spring ozone maximum phenomenon at SDZ under winds other than from the NNW to E sectors. The emissions of nitrogen oxide in the North China plain cause a decrease in ozone concentrations in winter.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrien Deroubaix ◽  
Benjamin Gaubert ◽  
Idir Bouarar ◽  
Thierno Doumbia ◽  
Yiming Liu ◽  
...  

<p>During the COVID-19 pandemic, the first lockdown period (March-May 2020) has led to an unprecedented reduction in pollutant emissions. For 3⁄4 of the more than 1,100 available monitoring stations in Europe, the average NO2 concentrations decreased by at least 25% (2.7 μg.m-3) compared to the average concentrations recorded during the same period of the previous seven years. The relative reduction was of similar magnitude in both urban and rural areas.</p><p>We further investigate the spatial distribution of the O3 change. Relative to the seven years average, positive anomalies were observed in northern Europe and negative anomalies in southwestern Europe. However, the level of total oxidant (Ox = O3 + NO2) remained unchanged except in southwestern Europe where it decreased.</p><p>At the global scale, the ozone concentration increased only in a few NOx-saturated regions. After presenting data from monitoring stations in Europe, we analyze the drivers of the change in surface ozone concentrations using the global Community Earth System Model. We contrast global simulations of the atmospheric composition with and without lockdown adjusted anthropogenic emissions for the COVID-19 period.</p><p>By comparing the situation in Europe with that of the United States and China, we show that the reduced cloudiness in northern Europe played a significant role by shifting the photochemical partitioning between NO2 and O3 toward more ozone, while in the North China Plain, enhanced ozone concentrations resulted primarily from reduced emissions of primary pollutants.</p><p>These results illustrate the complexity of the processes affecting ozone in the troposphere and hence the difficulty of implementing efficient regulations targeting air quality impacts.</p>


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 3131-3167 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. S. R. Pausata ◽  
L. Pozzoli ◽  
E. Vignati ◽  
F. J. Dentener

Abstract. Ozone pollution represents a serious health and environmental problem. While ozone pollution is mostly produced by photochemistry in summer, elevated ozone concentrations can also be influenced by long range transport driven by the atmospheric circulation and stratospheric ozone intrusions. We analyze the role of large scale atmospheric circulation variability in the North Atlantic basin in determining surface ozone concentrations. Here, we show, using ground station measurements and a coupled atmosphere-chemistry model simulation for the period 1980–2005, that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) does affect surface ozone concentrations – on average, over 10 ppbv on the monthly mean in southwestern, central and northern Europe – during all seasons except fall. The commonly used NAO index is able to capture the link existing between atmospheric dynamics and surface ozone concentrations in winter and spring but it fails in summer. We find that the first Principal Component, computed from the time variation of the sea level pressure (SLP) field, detects the atmosphere circulation/ozone relationship not only in winter and spring but also during summer, when the atmospheric circulation weakens and regional photochemical processes peak. The first Principal Component of the SLP field could be used as a tool to identify areas more exposed to forthcoming ozone pollution events. Finally, our results suggest that the increasing baseline ozone in western and northern Europe during the 1990s could be related to the prevailing phase of the NAO in that period.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Shen ◽  
Daniel J. Jacob ◽  
Xiong Liu ◽  
Guanyu Huang ◽  
Ke Li ◽  
...  

Abstract. We use data from the new China Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) network to show that OMI satellite observations of tropospheric ozone can successfully map the distribution of surface ozone pollution in China and the frequency of high-ozone episodes. After subtracting the Pacific background, OMI ozone enhancements over China can quantify mean summer afternoon surface ozone with a precision of 10.7 ppb and a spatial correlation coefficient R=0.73. Day-to-day correlations between OMI and the MEE ozone data are statistically significant but limited by noise in the individual OMI retrievals. OMI shows significantly higher values on surface ozone episode days (>82 ppb). An extreme value model can successfully predict the probability of surface ozone episodes from the daily OMI data. The 2005–2017 OMI record shows a 0.67 ppb a−1 increase in mean summer afternoon ozone in eastern China and an increasing frequency of ozone pollution episodes particularly in the north.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 6357-6376 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. S. R. Pausata ◽  
L. Pozzoli ◽  
E. Vignati ◽  
F. J. Dentener

Abstract. Ozone pollution represents a serious health and environmental problem. While ozone pollution is mostly produced by photochemistry in summer, elevated ozone concentrations can also be influenced by long range transport driven by the atmospheric circulation and stratospheric ozone intrusions. We analyze the role of large scale atmospheric circulation variability in the North Atlantic basin in determining surface ozone concentrations over Europe. Here, we show, using ground station measurements and a coupled atmosphere-chemistry model simulation for the period 1980–2005, that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) does affect surface ozone concentrations – on a monthly timescale, over 10 ppbv in southwestern, central and northern Europe – during all seasons except fall. The commonly used NAO index is able to capture the link existing between atmospheric dynamics and surface ozone concentrations in winter and spring but it fails in summer. We find that the first Principal Component, computed from the time variation of the sea level pressure (SLP) field, detects the atmosphere circulation/ozone relationship not only in winter and spring but also during summer, when the atmospheric circulation weakens and regional photochemical processes peak. Given the NAO forecasting skill at intraseasonal time scale, the first Principal Component of the SLP field could be used as an indicator to identify areas more exposed to forthcoming ozone pollution events. Finally, our results suggest that the increasing baseline ozone in western and northern Europe during the 1990s could be related to the prevailing positive phase of the NAO in that period.


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