Identification

Title

Springtime high surface ozone events over the western United States: Quantifying the role of stratospheric intrusions

Abstract

The published literature debates the extent to which naturally occurring stratospheric ozone intrusions reach the surface and contribute to exceedances of the U.S. National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone (75 ppbv implemented in 2008). Analysis of ozonesondes, lidar, and surface measurements over the western U.S. from April to June 2010 show that a global high-resolution (~50 × 50 km²) chemistry-climate model (GFDL AM3) captures the observed layered features and sharp ozone gradients of deep stratospheric intrusions, representing a major improvement over previous chemical transport models. Thirteen intrusions enhanced total daily maximum 8-h average (MDA8) ozone to ~70-86 ppbv at surface sites. With a stratospheric ozone tracer defined relative to a dynamically varying tropopause, we find that stratospheric intrusions can episodically increase surface MDA8 ozone by 20-40 ppbv (all model estimates are bias corrected), including on days when observed ozone exceeds the NAAQS threshold. These stratospheric intrusions elevated background ozone concentrations (estimated by turning off North American anthropogenic emissions in the model) to MDA8 values of 60-75 ppbv. At high-elevation western U.S. sites, the 25th-75th percentile of the stratospheric contribution is 15-25 ppbv when observed MDA8 ozone is 60-70 ppbv, and increases to ~17-40 ppbv for the 70-85 ppbv range. These estimates, up to 2-3 times greater than previously reported, indicate a major role for stratospheric intrusions in contributing to springtime high-O₃ events over the high-altitude western U.S., posing a challenge for staying below the ozone NAAQS threshold, particularly if a value in the 60-70 ppbv range were to be adopted.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7sj1md0

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2012-10-12T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact