Significant ground-level ozone attributed to lightning-induced nitrogen oxides during summertime over the Mountain West States

Abstract

Using lightning flash data from the National Lightning Detection Network with an updated lightning nitrogen oxides (NO x ) emission estimation algorithm in the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model, we estimate the hourly variations in lightning NO x emissions for the summer of 2011 and simulate its impact on distributions of tropospheric ozone (O 3 ) across the continental United States. We find that typical summer-time lightning activity across the U.S. Mountain West States (MWS) injects NO x emissions comparable to those from anthropogenic sources into the troposphere over the region. Comparison of two model simulation cases with and without lightning NO x emissions show that significant amount of ground-level O 3 in the MWS during the summer can be attributed to the lightning NO X emissions. The simulated surface-level O 3 from a model configuration incorporating lightning NO x emissions showed better agreement with the observed values than the model configuration without lightning NO x emissions. The time periods of significant reduction in bias in simulated O 3 between these two cases strongly correlate with the time periods when lightning activity occurred in the region. The inclusion of lightning NO x increased daily maximum 8 h O 3 by up to 17 ppb and improved model performance relative to measured surface O 3 mixing ratios in the MWS region. Analysis of model results in conjunction with lidar measurements at Boulder, Colorado during July 2014 corroborated similar impacts of lightning NO x emissions on O 3 air quality. The magnitude of lightning NO x emissions estimated for other summers is comparable to the 2011 estimates suggesting that summertime surface-level O 3 levels in the MWS region could be significantly influenced by lightning NO x .npj Climate and Atmospheric Science (2020) 3:6 ; https://doi.

Contrasting Trends of Surface PM2.5, O3, and NO2 and Their Relationships with Meteorological Parameters in Typical Coastal and Inland Cities in the Yangtze River Delta

“…This is likely due to vertical mixing, bringing down a certain amount of O 3 and NO 2 from the upper layers of the atmosphere during convective rain activity and thunderstorms [ 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. Surface NO 2 concentrations can also be enhanced by lightning-generated NO 2 during convective rain events [ 43 , 44 , 45 ]. Rainfall frequency distributions in the two cities were similar, with the highest frequency occurring when the daily rainfall intensity was 1–10 mm.…”

The influence of weather-driven processes on tropospheric ozone

“…The production of NO x by lightning activity accounts for 10-20 % of the global NO x budget (Miyazaki et al, 2014). Kang et al (2020) even report a 30 % contribution to surface ozone, comparable to the anthropogenic NO x source, in the Eastern US summer. But the comparisons to measurements point to the relevant modelling uncertainties of 1.4 Tg(N) a −1 (Miyazaki et al, 2014;Tost et al, 2007b).…”

“…Lightning activity is the major source of NO x over remote oceans accounting for 10-30 % of the global emissions (Miyazaki et al, 2014;Kang et al, 2020). The regional distribution of lightning is highly uncertain, as it has been shown by Tost et al (2007b) applying different convection and lightning parameterizations in the EMAC model.…”

Establishing the Suitability of the Model for Prediction Across Scales for Global Retrospective Air Quality Modeling

“…This specific WRF model configuration–detailed in Gilliam and Pleim (2010) and Pleim and Gilliam (2009), facilitated the official transition from MM5 to WRF as the primary source of meteorology for CMAQ. This WRF configuration has been used extensively for CMAQ developments and applications over the last decade (Appel et al., 2014, 2017; Foley et al., 2015; Gan et al., 2015; Kang et al., 2020; Matichuk et al., 2017; McNider et al., 2018; Pleim et al., 2019; Pye et al., 2015; Xing et al., 2014).…”