The Ozone Water–Land Environmental Transition Study: An Innovative Strategy for Understanding Chesapeake Bay Pollution Events

Abstract

Coastal regions have historically represented a significant challenge for air quality investigations because of water–land boundary transition characteristics and a paucity of measurements available over water. Prior studies have identified the formation of high levels of ozone over water bodies, such as the Chesapeake Bay, that can potentially recirculate back over land to significantly impact populated areas. Earth-observing satellites and forecast models face challenges in capturing the coastal transition zone where small-scale meteorological dynamics are complex and large changes in pollutants can occur on very short spatial and temporal scales. An observation strategy is presented to synchronously measure pollutants “over land” and “over water” to provide a more complete picture of chemical gradients across coastal boundaries for both the needs of state and local environmental management and new remote sensing platforms. Intensive vertical profile information from ozone lidar systems and ozonesondes, obtained at two main sites, one over land and the other over water, are complemented by remote sensing and in situ observations of air quality from ground-based, airborne (both personned and unpersonned), and shipborne platforms. These observations, coupled with reliable chemical transport simulations, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Air Quality Forecast Capability (NAQFC), are expected to lead to a more fully characterized and complete land–water interaction observing system that can be used to assess future geostationary air quality instruments, such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO), and current low-Earth-orbiting satellites, such as the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5 Precursor (S5-P) with its Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI).

Sensitivity of Meteorological Skill to Selection of WRF‐Chem Physical Parameterizations and Impact on Ozone Prediction During the Lake Michigan Ozone Study (LMOS)

“…More recently, measurements aboard the Lake Express Ferry during the ozone seasons of 2008-2010 confirmed an ozone enhancement averaging 4 ppb over the lake relative to a land monitor at Kenosha, WI (Cleary et al, 2015). Similarly, higher concentration of ozone over the water was measured for the Chesapeake Bay Loughner et al, 2014;Sullivan et al, 2018), and for Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair (Levy et al, 2010).…”

Sensitivity of Ozone Production to NOx and VOC Along the Lake Michigan Coastline

“…Depending on local winds, emissions can be advected offshore, chemically processed in the shallow, stable boundary layer over a body of water and then advected onshore to produce high pollution events due to lake breeze circulation (Foley et al, ). Coastal regions in the United States where this phenomenon has been observed include Lake Michigan (Dye et al, ), Lake Erie (Brook et al, ), the Gulf of Mexico (Mazzuca et al, ), and the Chesapeake Bay (Loughner et al, ; Stauffer & Thompson, ; Sullivan et al, ). There is still significant uncertainty regarding the conditions driving coastal O 3 production, which limits confidence in proposed emission control strategies for reducing O 3 exceedances in such regions.…”

Demonstration of an off-axis parabolic receiver for near-range retrieval of lidar ozone profiles

“…The system fits into a small mobile trailer and is capable of being operated at remote locations. LMOL has been used in multiple field campaigns (Leblanc et al, 2017;Sullivan et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2017) and provided data for the Ozone Water Land Environmental Transition Study (Sullivan et al, 2018;Berkoff et al, 2017) in summer 2017. The OWLETS campaign aimed to evaluate gradi-ents between water and land in coastal regions, and LMOL provided vertical profiles "over water" by stationing the lidar at the mid-point of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel system near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.…”