A multi-model comparison of meteorological drivers of surface ozone over Europe

Noelia Otero; Jana Sillmann; Kathleen Mar; Henning W. Rust; Sverre Solberg; Camilla Andersson; M. Engardt; Robert Bergström; B. Bessagnet; Augustin Colette; Florian Couvidat; C. Cuvelier; S. Tsyro; Hilde Fagerli; M. Schaap; Astrid Manders; Mihaela Mircea; Gino Briganti; Andrea Cappelletti; Mario Adani; Massimo D'Isidoro; Maria-Teresa Pay; M. R. Theobald; Marta G. Vivanco; Peter Wind; Narendra Ojha; Valentin Raffort; Tim Butler

doi:10.5194/acp-18-12269-2018

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.

GRID RESOLUTION

AIR-QUALITY MODEL

DRY DEPOSITION

EMISSION RATE VARIABILITY

BIOGENIC EMISSIONS

RELATIVE IMPORTANCE

CHEMISTRY TRANSPORT MODELS

NITROGEN DEPOSITION

CLIMATE-CHANGE

ATMOSPHERIC BOUNDARY-LAYER

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

Other publications Research

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)