Bay Breeze and Sea Breeze Circulation Impacts on the Planetary Boundary Layer and Air Quality From an Observed and Modeled DISCOVER‐AQ Texas Case Study

Abstract

The role of the sea/bay breeze in the planetary boundary layer evolution and air quality during a high ozone event day in the Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality (DISCOVER‐AQ) Texas 2013 campaign was examined. Data from surface air quality monitoring network stations, airborne lidar data, and additional ground‐based lidar instrumentation deployed during the campaign allowed for a unique three‐dimensional spatial and temporal study of the progression of both meteorological and air quality conditions in the Houston‐Galveston regions on 25 September 2013. The Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry model was used to examine the relationship of the land and bay/sea breeze circulations and its influence on air quality during the case study. Comparisons between observations and simulations revealed the largest discrepancies near the Galveston Bay shore areas where the highly localized ozone concentrations were observed and were linked to the strength and timing of the bay/sea breeze progression. Additionally, results indicate vertical downmixing from the remnants of the nighttime residual layer during morning hours into the convective boundary layer and from the lofted offshore return flow into the subjacent bay breeze flow.

Identification of Sea Breeze Recirculation and Its Effects on Ozone in Houston, TX, During DISCOVER‐AQ 2013

“…good agreement with previously published case studies of sea breeze days over the HGB area (Banta et al, 2005;Caicedo et al, 2019;Chen et al, 2011).…”

“…In HGB, we chose 21 sites (red circles in Figure 1) within 20 km from the coastal lines that have wind measurements to capture the sea breeze. Previous studies have demonstrated that the sea breeze can penetrate at least 20 km inland in the HGB region (Banta et al, 2005;Caicedo et al, 2019;Chen et al, 2011). Among these…”

“…A significant fraction of summertime ozone exceedances in HGB have been found to associate with sea breeze recirculation (Banta et al, 2005, 2011; Caicedo et al, 2019; Rappenglück et al, 2008). The recirculation typically develops as the land breeze in the morning transports the pollution‐laden air mass from the land toward the sea, where ozone loss rate is much lower than over the land, followed by the return of these pollutants in the afternoon by the onshore sea breeze.…”

“…These data are not applicable for identifying the sea breeze because of their coarse resolution. Instead, surface wind measurements at coastal sites were the most commonly used data sets to discern the sea breeze circulation (Caicedo et al, 2019; David & Nair, 2011; Helmis, Asimakopoulos, et al, 1997). While the general features of the sea breeze are known, such as the diurnal change of wind directions from offshore to onshore and wind speed enhancement after the onset of the sea breeze, the quantitative representation of such features into an automatic algorithm is often elusive and a series of ad hoc screening criteria had to be added which differ from region to region (Adame et al, 2010; Stauffer & Thompson, 2015).…”

Environmental Controls on Tropical Sea Breeze Convection and Resulting Aerosol Redistribution

“…While aerosol redistribution within the boundary layer has been studied extensively (Banta et al, ; Ding et al, ; Iwai et al, ; Liu et al, ; Loughner et al, ), the convective processes that may redistribute aerosols further aloft have received little attention. This is particularly true in observational studies using in situ measurements where sea breeze cases accompanying convective clouds and precipitation have been excluded from the analysis, since those signals generate substantial aerosol backscatter gradients which hinder the retrieval of boundary layer and aerosol properties (Caicedo et al, ). In the presence of moist sea breeze‐initiated convection, aerosols in the lower troposphere may be vertically redistributed to upper tropospheric levels via cloud venting (Cotton et al, ).…”