Model analysis of seasonal variations in tropospheric ozone and carbon monoxide over East Asia

Temporal-spatial variations in tropospheric ozone concentrations over East Asia in the period from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2004 were simulated by using the Models-3 Community Multi-scale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system with meteorological fields calculated by the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS). The simulated concentrations of ozone and carbon monoxide were compared with ground level observations at two remote sites, Ryori (39.03°N, 141.82°E) and Yonagunijima (24.47°N, 123.02°E). The comparison shows that the model reproduces their seasonal variation patterns reasonably well, and simulated ozone levels are generally in good agreement with the observed ones, but carbon monoxide concentrations are underestimated. Analysis of horizontal distributions of monthly averaged ozone mixing ratios in the surface layer indicates that ozone concentrations have noticeable differences among the four seasons; they are generally higher in the spring and summer while lower in the winter, reflecting the seasonal variation of solar intensity and photochemical activity and the fact that the monsoons over East Asia are playing an important role in ozone distributions.

[1]  Paul S. Monks,et al.  A review of the observations and origins of the spring ozone maximum. , 2000 .

[2]  David G. Streets,et al.  Large‐scale structure of trace gas and aerosol distributions over the western Pacific Ocean during the Transport and Chemical Evolution Over the Pacific (TRACE‐P) experiment , 2003 .

[3]  D. Byun.  Science algorithms of the EPA Models-3 community multi-scale air quality (CMAQ) modeling system , 1999 .

[4]  Michael Q. Wang,et al.  An inventory of gaseous and primary aerosol emissions in Asia in the year 2000 , 2003 .

[5]  Zifa Wang,et al.  Why does surface ozone peak in summertime at Waliguan? , 2004 .

[6]  H. Akimoto,et al.  Lower tropospheric ozone trend observed in 1989–1997 at Okinawa, Japan , 1998 .

[7]  D. Yihui.  The Summer Monsoon in East Asia , 1994 .

[8]  William P L Carter,et al.  Documentation of the SAPRC-99 chemical mechanism for VOC reactivity assessment. Volume 2. , 2000 .

[9]  R. Pielke,et al.  A comprehensive meteorological modeling system—RAMS , 1992 .

[10]  Hajime Akimoto,et al.  Seasonal characteristics of tropospheric ozone production and mixing ratios over East Asia: A global three-dimensional chemical transport model analysis , 2000 .

[11]  J. Lelieveld,et al.  What controls tropospheric ozone , 2000 .

[12]  D. Yihui,et al.  Monsoons over China , 1993 .

[13]  Itsushi Uno,et al.  A Numerical Study of Tropospheric Ozone in the Springtime in East Asia , 2004 .

[14]  H. Tanimoto,et al.  Surface ozone at four remote island sites and the preliminary assessment of the exceedances of its critical level in Japan , 2002 .

[15]  Meigen Zhang.  Large-scale structure of trace gas and aerosol distributions over the western Pacific Ocean during TRACE-P , 2003 .

[16]  J. Holton.  On the Global Exchange of Mass between the Stratosphere and Troposphere , 1990 .

[17]  Daewon W. Byun,et al.  Numerical study of boundary layer ozone transport and photochemical production in east Asia in the wintertime , 2002 .

[18]  James B. Kerr,et al.  Trends of ozone in the troposphere , 1998 .

[19]  David G. Streets,et al.  Anthropogenic NOx emissions in Asia in the period 1990–2020 , 1999 .