A multi-model comparison of meteorological drivers of surface ozone over Europe
Journal article, 2018
The implementation of European emission abatement strategies has led to a significant reduction in the emissions of ozone precursors during the last decade. Ground-level ozone is also influenced by meteorological factors such as temperature, which exhibit interannual variability and are expected to change in the future. The impacts of climate change on air quality are usually investigated through air-quality models that simulate interactions between emissions, meteorology and chemistry. Within a multi-model assessment, this study aims to better understand how air-quality models represent the relationship between meteorological variables and surface ozone concentrations over Europe. A multiple linear regression (MLR) approach is applied to observed and modelled time series across 10 European regions in springtime and summertime for the period of 2000-2010 for both models and observations. Overall, the air-quality models are in better agreement with observations in summertime than in springtime and particularly in certain regions, such as France, central Europe or eastern Europe, where local meteorological variables show a strong influence on surface ozone concentrations. Larger discrepancies are found for the southern regions, such as the Balkans, the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean basin, especially in springtime. We show that the air-quality models do not properly reproduce the sensitivity of surface ozone to some of the main meteorological drivers, such as maximum temperature, relative humidity and surface solar radiation. Specifically, all air-quality models show more limitations in capturing the strength of the ozone-relative-humidity relationship detected in the observed time series in most of the regions, for both seasons. Here, we speculate that dry-deposition schemes in the air-quality models might play an essential role in capturing this relationship. We further quantify the relationship between ozone and maximum temperature (m(o3-T), climate penalty) in observations and air-quality models. In summertime, most of the air-quality models are able to reproduce the observed climate penalty reasonably well in certain regions such as France, central Europe and northern Italy. However, larger discrepancies are found in springtime, where air-quality models tend to overestimate the magnitude of the observed climate penalty.
CLIMATE-CHANGE
EMISSION RATE VARIABILITY
CHEMISTRY TRANSPORT MODELS
DRY DEPOSITION
RELATIVE IMPORTANCE
AIR-QUALITY MODEL
ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY-LAYER
BIOGENIC EMISSIONS
GRID RESOLUTION
NITROGEN DEPOSITION
Author
Noelia Otero
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)
Freie Universität Berlin
Jana Sillmann
Cicero Senter for klimaforskning
Kathleen Mar
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)
Henning W. Rust
Freie Universität Berlin
Sverre Solberg
Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU)
Camilla Andersson
SMHI
M. Engardt
SMHI
Robert Bergström
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Microwave and Optical Remote Sensing
SMHI
B. Bessagnet
Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques (INERIS)
Augustin Colette
Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques (INERIS)
Florian Couvidat
Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques (INERIS)
C. Cuvelier
European Commission (EC)
S. Tsyro
Norwegian Meteorological Institute
Hilde Fagerli
Norwegian Meteorological Institute
M. Schaap
Freie Universität Berlin
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)
Astrid Manders
Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)
Mihaela Mircea
ENEA
Gino Briganti
ENEA
Andrea Cappelletti
ENEA
Mario Adani
ENEA
Massimo D'Isidoro
ENEA
Maria-Teresa Pay
Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)
M. R. Theobald
Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (Ciemat)
Marta G. Vivanco
Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas, Medioambientales y Tecnologicas (Ciemat)
Peter Wind
Norwegian Meteorological Institute
University of Tromsø – The Arctic University of Norway
Narendra Ojha
Max Planck Society
Valentin Raffort
École des Ponts ParisTech
Tim Butler
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)
Freie Universität Berlin
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
16807316 (ISSN) 16807324 (eISSN)
Vol. 18 16 12269-12288Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)
Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences
Climate Research
Roots
Basic sciences
DOI
10.5194/acp-18-12269-2018