Changes in European surface ozone air quality over the 21st century

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Stähle ◽  
Harald Rieder ◽  
Monika Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Photochemical Reactions ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Target Value ◽  
Ozone Concentrations

<p><span>Surface ozone is a criteria air pollutant, formed by photochemical reactions involving nitrogen oxides (NO</span><sub><span>x</span></sub><span>) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Despite recent reductions in the surface ozone burden following precursor emission controls (predominantly concerning NOx) the recent European air quality report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) highlights that to date still 17 EU member states are reporting ozone concentrations that exceed the target value set for the protection of human health (120 µg/m³, maximum daily 8-hour average (MDA8) not to be exceeded more than 25 times per year (3-year average)). In total, 20 percent of all ozone monitoring sites showed ozone concentrations exceeding the EU target value for the protection of human health, and only 5% of monitoring sites showed ozone concentrations in compliance with the more stringent WHO target value. Here we focus on past and future changes in European surface ozone abundances in a set of simulations performed with the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) chemistry-climate model CM3. First, we evaluate the general model performance for the recent past by comparing model output to observations available from the EEA Airbase database. The evaluation is performed on the basis of interpolation of the historic site level observations to a grid of 2.5° x 2°, matching the dimensions of the CM3 model. Our results for the recent past show that the modelled ozone abundances are biased high compared to observations. Therefore, we apply a suite of correction techniques (quantile mapping, delta function) to obtain modelled ozone fields in agreement with observations. Emanating from remediated model data the correction functions derived are applied to transient (2006-2100) simulations following selected Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). Using these bias-corrected future simulations we illustrate next potential changes in future European surface ozone air pollution over the course of the 21</span><sup><span>st</span></sup><span> century.</span></p>

Temporal patterns and trends of surface ozone concentrations over Portugal

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Gama ◽  
Alexandra Monteiro ◽  
Myriam Lopes ◽  
Ana Isabel Miranda
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Temporal Variability ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Ozone Concentrations ◽  
Long Term Study

<p>Tropospheric ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) is a critical pollutant over the Mediterranean countries, including Portugal, due to systematic exceedances to the thresholds for the protection of human health. Due to the location of Portugal, on the Atlantic coast at the south-west point of Europe, the observed O<sub>3</sub> concentrations are very much influenced not only by local and regional production but also by northern mid-latitudes background concentrations. Ozone trends in the Iberian Peninsula were previously analysed by Monteiro et al. (2012), based on 10-years of O<sub>3</sub> observations. Nevertheless, only two of the eleven background monitoring stations analysed in that study are located in Portugal and these two stations are located in Porto and Lisbon urban areas. Although during pollution events O<sub>3</sub> levels in urban areas may be high enough to affect human health, the highest concentrations are found in rural locations downwind from the urban and industrialized areas, rather than in cities. This happens because close to the sources (e.g., in urban areas) freshly emitted NO locally scavenges O<sub>3</sub>. A long-term study of the spatial and temporal variability and trends of the ozone concentrations over Portugal is missing, aiming to answer the following questions:</p><p>-           What is the temporal variability of ozone concentrations?</p><p>-           Which trends can we find in observations?</p><p>-           How were the ozone spring maxima concentrations affected by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020?</p><p>In this presentation, these questions will be answered based on the statistical analysis of O<sub>3</sub> concentrations recorded within the national air quality monitoring network between 2005 and 2020 (16 years). The variability of the surface ozone concentrations over Portugal, on the timescales from diurnal to annual, will be presented and discussed, taking into account the physical and chemical processes that control that variability. Using the TheilSen function from the OpenAir package for R (Carslaw and Ropkins 2012), which quantifies monotonic trends and calculates the associated p-value through bootstrap simulations, O<sub>3</sub> concentration long-term trends will be estimated for the different regions and environments (e.g., rural, urban).  Moreover, taking advantage of the unique situation provided by the COVID-19 lockdown during spring 2020, when the government imposed mandatory confinement and citizens movement restriction, leading to a reduction in traffic-related atmospheric emissions, the role of these emissions on ozone levels during the spring period will be studied and presented.</p><p> </p><p>Carslaw and Ropkins, 2012. Openair—an R package for air quality data analysis. Environ. Model. Softw. 27-28,52-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2011.09.008</p><p>Monteiro et al., 2012. Trends in ozone concentrations in the Iberian Peninsula by quantile regression and clustering. Atmos. Environ. 56, 184-193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2012.03.069</p>

scholarly journals Modelling the impact of megacities on local, regional and global tropospheric ozone and the deposition of nitrogen species

2013 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 12215-12231 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. S. Stock ◽  
M. R. Russo ◽  
T. M. Butler ◽  
A. T. Archibald ◽  
M. G. Lawrence ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Chemical Environment ◽  
Ozone Production ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Local Emissions

Abstract. We examine the effects of ozone precursor emissions from megacities on present-day air quality using the global chemistry–climate model UM-UKCA (UK Met Office Unified Model coupled to the UK Chemistry and Aerosols model). The sensitivity of megacity and regional ozone to local emissions, both from within the megacity and from surrounding regions, is important for determining air quality across many scales, which in turn is key for reducing human exposure to high levels of pollutants. We use two methods, perturbation and tagging, to quantify the impact of megacity emissions on global ozone. We also completely redistribute the anthropogenic emissions from megacities, to compare changes in local air quality going from centralised, densely populated megacities to decentralised, lower density urban areas. Focus is placed not only on how changes to megacity emissions affect regional and global NOx and O3, but also on changes to NOy deposition and to local chemical environments which are perturbed by the emission changes. The perturbation and tagging methods show broadly similar megacity impacts on total ozone, with the perturbation method underestimating the contribution partially because it perturbs the background chemical environment. The total redistribution of megacity emissions locally shifts the chemical environment towards more NOx-limited conditions in the megacities, which is more conducive to ozone production, and monthly mean surface ozone is found to increase up to 30% in megacities, depending on latitude and season. However, the displacement of emissions has little effect on the global annual ozone burden (0.12% change). Globally, megacity emissions are shown to contribute ~3% of total NOy deposition. The changes in O3, NOx and NOy deposition described here are useful for quantifying megacity impacts and for understanding the sensitivity of megacity regions to local emissions. The small global effects of the 100% redistribution carried out in this study suggest that the distribution of emissions on the local scale is unlikely to have large implications for chemistry–climate processes on the global scale.

scholarly journals Impacts of changes in land use and land cover on atmospheric chemistry and air quality over the 21st century

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 15469-15495 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Wu ◽  
L. J. Mickley ◽  
J. O. Kaplan ◽  
D. J. Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Land Use Change ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Secondary Organic Aerosols ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Organic Aerosols ◽  
Ozone Concentrations ◽  
Anthropogenic Land Use

Abstract. The effects of future land use and land cover change on the chemical composition of the atmosphere and air quality are largely unknown. To investigate the potential effects associated with future changes in vegetation driven by atmospheric CO2 concentrations, climate, and anthropogenic land use over the 21st century, we performed a series of model experiments combining a general circulation model with a dynamic global vegetation model and an atmospheric chemical-transport model. Our results indicate that climate- and CO2-induced changes in vegetation composition and density could lead to decreases in summer afternoon surface ozone of up to 10 ppb over large areas of the northern mid-latitudes. This is largely driven by the substantial increases in ozone dry deposition associated with changes in the composition of temperate and boreal forests where conifer forests are replaced by those dominated by broadleaf tree types, as well as a CO2-driven increase in vegetation density. Climate-driven vegetation changes over the period 2000–2100 lead to general increases in isoprene emissions, globally by 15 % in 2050 and 36 % in 2100. These increases in isoprene emissions result in decreases in surface ozone concentrations where the NOx levels are low, such as in remote tropical rainforests. However, over polluted regions, such as the northeastern United States, ozone concentrations are calculated to increase with higher isoprene emissions in the future. Increases in biogenic emissions also lead to higher concentrations of secondary organic aerosols, which increase globally by 10 % in 2050 and 20 % in 2100. Surface concentrations of secondary organic aerosols are calculated to increase by up to 1 μg m−3 for large areas in Eurasia. When we use a scenario of future anthropogenic land use change, we find less increase in global isoprene emissions due to replacement of higher-emitting forests by lower-emitting cropland. The global atmospheric burden of secondary organic aerosols changes little by 2100 when we account for future land use change, but both secondary organic aerosols and ozone show large regional changes at the surface.

scholarly journals Explicit Modeling of Meteorological Explanatory Variables in Short-Term Forecasting of Maximum Ozone Concentrations via a Multiple Regression Time Series Framework

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1304
Author(s):  
Sigfrido Iglesias-Gonzalez ◽  
Maria E. Huertas-Bolanos ◽  
Ivan Y. Hernandez-Paniagua ◽  
Alberto Mendoza
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Multiple Regression ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Moving Average ◽  
Time Series Forecasting ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Ozone Level ◽  
Ozone Concentrations

Statistical time series forecasting is a useful tool for predicting air pollutant concentrations in urban areas, especially in emerging economies, where the capacity to implement comprehensive air quality models is limited. In this study, a general multiple regression with seasonal autoregressive moving average errors model was estimated and implemented to forecast maximum ozone concentrations with a short time resolution: overnight, morning, afternoon and evening. In contrast to a number of short-term air quality time series forecasting applications, the model was designed to explicitly include the effects of meteorological variables on the ozone level as exogenous variables. As the application location, the model was constructed with data from five monitoring stations in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area of Mexico. The results show that, together with structural stochastic components, meteorological parameters have a significant contribution for obtaining reliable forecasts. The resulting model is an interpretable, useful and easily implementable model for forecasting ozone maxima. Moreover, it proved to be consistent with the general dynamics of ozone formation and provides a suitable platform for forecasting, showing similar or better performance compared to models in other existing studies.

scholarly journals Stratospheric ozone changes under solar geoengineering: implications for UV exposure and air quality

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 4191-4203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peer Johannes Nowack ◽  
Nathan Luke Abraham ◽  
Peter Braesicke ◽  
John Adrian Pyle
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Stratospheric Ozone ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Specific Humidity ◽  
Uv Exposure ◽  
Solar Radiation Management ◽  
Global Mean

Abstract. Various forms of geoengineering have been proposed to counter anthropogenic climate change. Methods which aim to modify the Earth's energy balance by reducing insolation are often subsumed under the term solar radiation management (SRM). Here, we present results of a standard SRM modelling experiment in which the incoming solar irradiance is reduced to offset the global mean warming induced by a quadrupling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. For the first time in an atmosphere–ocean coupled climate model, we include atmospheric composition feedbacks for this experiment. While the SRM scheme considered here could offset greenhouse gas induced global mean surface warming, it leads to important changes in atmospheric composition. We find large stratospheric ozone increases that induce significant reductions in surface UV-B irradiance, which would have implications for vitamin D production. In addition, the higher stratospheric ozone levels lead to decreased ozone photolysis in the troposphere. In combination with lower atmospheric specific humidity under SRM, this results in overall surface ozone concentration increases in the idealized G1 experiment. Both UV-B and surface ozone changes are important for human health. We therefore highlight that both stratospheric and tropospheric ozone changes must be considered in the assessment of any SRM scheme, due to their important roles in regulating UV exposure and air quality.

scholarly journals Gridded global surface ozone metrics for atmospheric chemistry model evaluation

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 603-647 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. D. Sofen ◽  
D. Bowdalo ◽  
M. J. Evans ◽  
F. Apadula ◽  
P. Bonasoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Model Evaluation ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Quality Monitoring ◽  
Air Quality Monitoring ◽  
Monitoring Networks ◽  
Chemistry Research ◽  
Consistent Manner

Abstract. The concentration of ozone at the Earth's surface is measured at many locations across the globe for the purposes of air quality monitoring and atmospheric chemistry research. We have brought together all publicly available surface ozone observations from online databases from the modern era to build a consistent dataset for the evaluation of chemical transport and chemistry-climate (Earth System) models for projects such as the Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative and Aer-Chem-MIP. From a total dataset of approximately 6600 sites and 500 million hourly observations from 1971–2015, approximately 2200 sites and 200 million hourly observations pass screening as high-quality sites in regional background locations that are appropriate for use in global model evaluation. There is generally good data volume since the start of air quality monitoring networks in 1990 through 2013. Ozone observations are biased heavily toward North America and Europe with sparse coverage over the rest of the globe. This dataset is made available for the purposes of model evaluation as a set of gridded metrics intended to describe the distribution of ozone concentrations on monthly and annual timescales. Metrics include the moments of the distribution, percentiles, maximum daily eight-hour average (MDA8), SOMO35, AOT40, and metrics related to air quality regulatory thresholds. Gridded datasets are stored as netCDF-4 files and are available to download from the British Atmospheric Data Centre (doi:10.5285/08fbe63d-fa6d-4a7a-b952-5932e3ab0452). We provide recommendations to the ozone measurement community regarding improving metadata reporting to simplify ongoing and future efforts in working with ozone data from disparate networks in a consistent manner.

scholarly journals Historical and future changes in air pollutants from CMIP6 models

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven T. Turnock ◽  
Robert J. Allen ◽  
Martin Andrews ◽  
Susanne E. Bauer ◽  
Louisa Emmons ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Air Pollutants ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Mitigation Measures ◽  
Climate Mitigation ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Natural Emission ◽  
Surface O3

Abstract. Poor air quality is currently responsible for large impacts on human health across the world. In addition, the air pollutants, ozone (O3) and particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter (PM2.5), are also radiatively active in the atmosphere and can influence Earth’s climate. It is important to understand the effect of air quality and climate mitigation measures over the historical period and in different future scenarios to ascertain any impacts from air pollutants on both climate and human health. The 6th Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6) presents an opportunity to analyse the change in air pollutants simulated by the current generation of climate and Earth system models that include a representation of chemistry and aerosols (particulate matter). The shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) used within CMIP6 encompass a wide range of trajectories in precursor emissions and climate change, allowing for an improved analysis of future changes to air pollutants. Firstly, we conduct an evaluation of the available CMIP6 models against surface observations of O3 and PM2.5. CMIP6 models show a consistent overestimation of observed surface O3 concentrations across most regions and in most seasons, with a large diversity in simulated values over northern hemisphere continental regions. Conversely, observed surface PM2.5 concentrations are consistently underestimated by CMIP6 models, particularly for the northern hemisphere winter months, with the largest model diversity near natural emission source regions. Over the historical period (1850–2014) large increases in both surface O3 and PM2.5 are simulated by the CMIP6 models across all regions, particularly over the mid to late 20th Century when anthropogenic emissions increase markedly. Large regional historical changes are simulated for both pollutants, across East and South Asia, with an increase of up to 40 ppb for O3 and 12 µg m-3 for PM2.5. In future scenarios containing strong air quality and climate mitigation measures (ssp126), air pollutants are substantially reduced across all regions by up to 15 ppb for O3 and 12 µg m-3 for PM2.5. However, for scenarios that encompass weak action on mitigating climate and reducing air pollutant emissions (ssp370), increases of both surface O3 (up 10 ppb) and PM2.5 (up to 8 µg m-3) are simulated across most regions. Although, for regions like North America and Europe small reductions in PM2.5 are simulated in this scenario. A comparison of simulated regional changes in both surface O3 and PM2.5 from individual CMIP6 models highlights important differences due to the interaction of aerosols, chemistry, climate and natural emission sources within models. The prediction of regional air pollutant concentrations from the latest climate and Earth system models used within CMIP6 shows that the particular future trajectory of climate and air quality mitigation measures could have important consequences for regional air quality, human health and near-term climate. Differences between individual models emphasises the importance of understanding how future Earth system feedbacks influence natural emission sources.

scholarly journals Solar “brightening” impact on summer surface ozone between 1990 and 2010 in Europe – a model sensitivity study of the influence of the aerosol–radiation interactions

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 9741-9765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanouil Oikonomakis ◽  
Sebnem Aksoyoglu ◽  
Martin Wild ◽  
Giancarlo Ciarelli ◽  
Urs Baltensperger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
Biogenic Emissions ◽  
Base Case ◽  
Air Quality Model ◽  
Quality Model ◽  
Ozone Concentrations ◽  
Photolysis Rates ◽  
Ozone Trends ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Surface solar radiation (SSR) observations have indicated an increasing trend in Europe since the mid-1980s, referred to as solar “brightening”. In this study, we used the regional air quality model, CAMx (Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions) to simulate and quantify, with various sensitivity runs (where the year 2010 served as the base case), the effects of increased radiation between 1990 and 2010 on photolysis rates (with the PHOT1, PHOT2 and PHOT3 scenarios, which represented the radiation in 1990) and biogenic volatile organic compound (BVOC) emissions (with the BIO scenario, which represented the biogenic emissions in 1990), and their consequent impacts on summer surface ozone concentrations over Europe between 1990 and 2010. The PHOT1 and PHOT2 scenarios examined the effect of doubling and tripling the anthropogenic PM2.5 concentrations, respectively, while the PHOT3 investigated the impact of an increase in just the sulfate concentrations by a factor of 3.4 (as in 1990), applied only to the calculation of photolysis rates. In the BIO scenario, we reduced the 2010 SSR by 3 % (keeping plant cover and temperature the same), recalculated the biogenic emissions and repeated the base case simulations with the new biogenic emissions. The impact on photolysis rates for all three scenarios was an increase (in 2010 compared to 1990) of 3–6 % which resulted in daytime (10:00–18:00 Local Mean Time – LMT) mean surface ozone differences of 0.2–0.7 ppb (0.5–1.5 %), with the largest hourly difference rising as high as 4–8 ppb (10–16 %). The effect of changes in BVOC emissions on daytime mean surface ozone was much smaller (up to 0.08 ppb, ∼ 0.2 %), as isoprene and terpene (monoterpene and sesquiterpene) emissions increased only by 2.5–3 and 0.7 %, respectively. Overall, the impact of the SSR changes on surface ozone was greater via the effects on photolysis rates compared to the effects on BVOC emissions, and the sensitivity test of their combined impact (the combination of PHOT3 and BIO is denoted as the COMBO scenario) showed nearly additive effects. In addition, all the sensitivity runs were repeated on a second base case with increased NOx emissions to account for any potential underestimation of modeled ozone production; the results did not change significantly in magnitude, but the spatial coverage of the effects was profoundly extended. Finally, the role of the aerosol–radiation interaction (ARI) changes in the European summer surface ozone trends was suggested to be more important when comparing to the order of magnitude of the ozone trends instead of the total ozone concentrations, indicating a potential partial damping of the effects of ozone precursor emissions' reduction.

Statistical modelling of combined ozone-temperature events in Europe

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Jahn ◽  
Elke Hertig
Keyword(s):  
Human Health ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Statistical Modelling ◽  
Meteorological Conditions ◽  
Photochemical Reactions ◽  
Air Pollutant ◽  
Urban Traffic ◽  
Ozone Formation ◽  
Regional Patterns ◽  
Wide Range

<p>Air pollution as well as high air temperature both pose a large risk to human health in Europe. High temperature levels are associated with an exceptionally high mortality rate, only representing the extreme end of a wide range of possible health effects. Tropospheric ozone, a secondary air pollutant, is primarily built by photochemical reactions under solar radiation with the involvement of precursor gases including nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, methane, and non-methane volatile organic compounds. Due to the specific characteristics of ozone formation, high levels of ozone and temperature often coincide, posing an even intensified threat to human health.</p><p>The current scientific work focuses on the co-occurrence of these two health stressors as well as their underlying meteorological conditions. A subset of European ozone (AirBase_v8, EEA) and temperature (ECA&D) stations is selected for analysis based on individual station locations and data coverage. Taking into account different settings of air substances concentrations (urban, outer conurbation area, rural regions), these stations are classified and grouped by station type and area type resulting in five distinct station classes: urban traffic, urban background, suburban background, rural background and rural industrial.</p><p>Maximum daily 8-hour average ozone values (MDA8O3, EEA), observed daily maximum air temperatures (TX, ECA&D) and meteorological variables (from ERA5, ECMWF) form the data basis for model building. Current thresholds and extreme definitions e.g. based on WHO air quality guidelines or high percentiles (75<sup>th</sup> and 90<sup>th</sup>) are examined and discussed to describe elevated levels of these variables and to finally define combined ozone-temperature events.</p><p>Possible regional patterns as well as disparities between urban and rural areas regarding the specific settings for ozone formation as well as varying meteorological mechanisms for the occurrence of combined ozone-temperature events are closely examined. The methodological focus is primary on statistical modelling, the application and comparison of varying multivariate statistical approaches and different machine learning methods, e.g. various regression analyses using shrinkage methods or random forests. Consequently, statistical models are generated to analyse the influence of meteorological conditions on the occurrence of combined ground-level ozone and temperature events along with the identification of primary key factors (e.g. ozone persistence or larger-scale air temperature and wind conditions) at each specific location.</p><p>Furthermore, frequency and intensity changes of combined ozone-temperate events in the scope of global warming are assessed. Thus, projections of these co-occurring events under the constraints of ongoing climate change until the end of the 21st century are analysed by integrating projections of general circulation models into the statistical modelling process.</p>

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