Strong Dependence of U.S. Summertime Air Quality on the Decadal Variability of Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures

Shen, Lu; Mickley, Loretta J.; Leibensperger, E. M.; Li, Mingwei

doi:10.1002/2017gl075905

Cited by 11 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…On the multi-decadal timescales, AMO exerts considerable influences on the global and regional meteorological variability (e.g., [21]). To our knowledge, only a few studies have examined its influence on ozone air quality [170,173,223]. AMO is a climate cycle that features positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the northern Atlantic in its warm phase.…”

Section: Amomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…AMO is a climate cycle that features positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in the northern Atlantic in its warm phase. Since 1900s, there have been warm AMO phases over 1931-1960 and 1990-2012 and cold phases in 1900-1929 and 1960-1994 [173,189]. In the warm phase, warming Atlantic SSTs can trigger diabatic heating in the atmosphere, which further influences the extratropical climate through stationary wave propagations [189,190].…”

Section: Amomentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding such linkages between ozone and SST [225] is particularly valuable because sea heat content has longer memory than atmosphere and can serve as a potential tool to predict ozone air quality. Shen et al [173]estimated that in one half cycle of AMO (~35 years) from its cold to warm phase, the summertime ozone levels in the US could increase by about 1-3 ppbv in the Northeast and 2-5 ppbv in the Great Plains. Yan et al [223] also showed that AMO and ENSO indices could explain~40% of the interannual variability of ozone concentrations in the US.…”

Section: Amomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Meteorology and Climate Influences on Tropospheric Ozone: a Review of Natural Sources, Chemistry, and Transport Patterns

2019

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Tropospheric ozone is a key air pollutant and greenhouse gas. Its fate strongly depends on meteorological conditions and therefore subject to climate change influences. Such dependences through biogenic, chemical, and dynamic processes on different spatiotemporal scales have been unraveled from observations and modeling studies. In this process-oriented review, we summarize three dominant pathways of meteorological and climatic impacts on tropospheric ozone and present their recent progress. The three pathways are influences through changes in the natural precursor emissions, the kinetics and partitioning of chemistry and deposition, and the transport of ozone and its precursors. Tropospheric ozone levels have shown significant global or regional responses to meteorological/climatic changes (e.g., changes in the Brewer-Dobson Circulation, the Hadley Circulation, and El Niño-Southern Oscillation) and can be explained through the conjunction of these pathways. Most recent model projections predict that future climate will increase surface ozone in polluted regions and decrease ozone at a global scale due to stronger ozone chemical loss. However, uncertainties in climate-ozone responses and limitations in model capability still challenge the magnitude and even the sign of such projections. We highlight the rising importance of future increase of stratosphere-troposphere exchange in modulating tropospheric ozone that may largely compensate the predicted chemical loss of tropospheric ozone burden. We also highlight that uncertainties in isoprene chemistry, biogenic emissions in changing CO 2 levels and vegetation, and interactions between ozone and vegetation may largely affect the surface ozone response to climate change. Future research and model improvements are required to fill these gaps.

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Section: Amomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Amomentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Amomentioning

confidence: 99%

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Meteorology and Climate Influences on Tropospheric Ozone: a Review of Natural Sources, Chemistry, and Transport Patterns

2019

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“…The model describes the high tail of the ozone probability density function (pdf) as a Poisson process limit, conditioned on the local OMI observation. Such a model has been used previously to relate the probability of extreme air pollution conditions to meteorological predictor variables (Rieder et al, 2013;Shen et al, 2016Shen et al, , 2017Pendergrass et al, 2019), but here we use the OMI enhancement as predictor variable. We fit the model to all daily concurrent observations of surface ozone and OMI ozone enhancements for the ensemble of eastern China sites south of 34 • N in Fig.…”

Section: Omi Boundary Layer Sensitivity Inferred From Ozonesondesmentioning

confidence: 99%

An evaluation of the ability of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) to observe boundary layer ozone pollution across China: application to 2005–2017 ozone trends

et al. 2019

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Abstract. Nadir-viewing satellite observations of tropospheric ozone in the UV have been shown to have some sensitivity to boundary layer ozone pollution episodes, but so far they have not yet been compared to surface ozone observations collected by large-scale monitoring networks. Here we use 2013–2017 surface ozone data from China's new Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) network of ∼ 1000 sites, together with vertical profiles from ozonesondes and aircraft, to quantify the ability of tropospheric ozone retrievals from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and to detect boundary layer ozone pollution in China. We focus on summer when ozone pollution in China is most severe and when OMI has the strongest sensitivity. After subtracting the Pacific background, we find that the 2013–2017 mean OMI ozone enhancements over eastern China have strong spatial correlation with the corresponding multiyear means in the surface afternoon observations (R=0.73), and that OMI can estimate these multiyear means in summer afternoon surface ozone with a precision of 8 ppb. The OMI data show significantly higher values on observed surface ozone episode days (>82 ppb) than on non-episode days. Day-to-day correlations with surface ozone are much weaker due to OMI noise and are stronger for sites in southern China (<34∘ N; R=0.3–0.6) than in northern China (R=0.1–0.3) because of weaker retrieval sensitivity and larger upper tropospheric variability in the north. Ozonesonde data show that much of the variability of OMI ozone over southern China in summer is driven by the boundary layer. Comparison of 2005–2009 and 2013–2017 OMI data indicates that mean summer afternoon surface ozone in southern China (including urban and rural regions) has increased by 3.5±3.0 ppb over the 8-year period and that the number of episode days per summer has increased by 2.2±0.4 (as diagnosed by an extreme value model), generally consistent with the few long-term surface records. Ozone increases have been particularly large in the Yangtze River Delta and in the Hubei, Guangxi and Hainan provinces.

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“…For comparison, we also calculated avoided deaths using an older CRF with an RR per 10 ppb increase in the maximum 6 month average of 1 h daily ozone maximum of 1.040 (95% CI: 1.013-1.067) for respiratory diseases (Jerrett et al 2009). We increase the Δc of MDA8 ozone averaged from April to September by 10% to represent the maximum 6-month average of 1 h daily ozone maximum following Shen et al (2017). Baseline mortality rates for each country and each disease are obtained from the World Health Organization Mortality Database (World Health Organization 2015).…”

Section: Health Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Co-benefits of China’s climate policy for air quality and human health in China and transboundary regions in 2030

Zhang

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Climate policies targeting CO2 emissions from fossil fuels can simultaneously reduce emissions of air pollutants and their precursors, thus mitigating air pollution and associated health impacts. Previous work has examined co-benefits of climate policy from reducing PM2.5 in rapidly-developing countries such as China, but have not examined co-benefits from ozone and its transboundary impact for both PM2.5 and ozone. Here, we compare the air quality and health co-benefits of China’s climate policy on both PM2.5 and ozone in China to their co-benefits in three downwind and populous countries (South Korea, Japan and the United States) using a coupled modeling framework. In a policy scenario consistent with China’s pledge to peak CO2 emissions in approximately 2030, avoided premature deaths from ozone reductions are 54 300 (95% confidence interval: 37 100–71 000) in China in 2030, nearly 60% of those from PM2.5. Total avoided premature deaths in South Korea, Japan, and the US are 1200 (900–1600), 3500 (2800–4300), and 1900 (1400–2500), respectively. Total avoided deaths in South Korea and Japan are dominated by reductions in PM2.5-related mortality, but ozone plays a more important role in the US. Similar to co-benefits for PM2.5 in China, co-benefits of China’s policy for ozone and for both pollutants in those downwind countries also rise with increasing policy stringency.

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Strong Dependence of U.S. Summertime Air Quality on the Decadal Variability of Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures

Cited by 11 publications

References 62 publications

Meteorology and Climate Influences on Tropospheric Ozone: a Review of Natural Sources, Chemistry, and Transport Patterns

Meteorology and Climate Influences on Tropospheric Ozone: a Review of Natural Sources, Chemistry, and Transport Patterns

An evaluation of the ability of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) to observe boundary layer ozone pollution across China: application to 2005–2017 ozone trends

Co-benefits of China’s climate policy for air quality and human health in China and transboundary regions in 2030

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