Synoptic and meteorological drivers of extreme ozone concentrations over Europe

Otero, Noelia; Sillmann, Jana; Schnell, Jordan L.; Rust, Henning W.; Butler, Tim

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/2/024005

Cited by 135 publications

(121 citation statements)

References 65 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…Jacob and Winner 2009, and references therein), synoptic patterns (e.g. Barnes and Fiore 2013, Shen et al 2015, Otero et al 2016, teleconnection patterns (e.g. Shen and Mickley 2017), and distribution of anthropogenic precursor emissions (e.g.…”

Section: Reconciliation With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connections between summer air pollution and stagnation

Kerr

Waugh

2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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The body of literature on ambient air pollution suggests that atmospheric stagnation events trigger high levels of air pollution. In this paper we use fifteen years (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014) of summertime in situ air quality measurements together with meteorological reanalysis data to examine the temporal correlation of pollutants with the Air Stagnation Index (ASI) on daily timescales. We find that while the direction of the relationship between the ASI and summertime PM 2.5 and O 3 ranges from near-zero to positive throughout regions comprising the contiguous United States (US), the strength of the relationship is very weak (e.g. in the Northeast the correlation coefficient between the ASI and PM 2.5 is 0.09). Moreover, similar to our analysis of the correlation of day-to-day variations of the ASI and pollutants, the percentage of co-occurring extreme pollution and stagnation events is small (e.g. days with a high coverage of stagnation only co-occur with extreme pollution events about one-third of the time in the Northeast). The southern US is an exception to our overall findings as the strength of the relationship between the ASI and pollution is stronger and the percentage of co-occurring events is higher compared with other regions. The results of this study suggest a reevaluation of the ASI as an index to assess meteorological and climatic impacts to air quality.

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Section: Reconciliation With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connections between summer air pollution and stagnation

Kerr

Waugh

2018

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…In a recent study, Otero et al (2016) analysed which synoptic and local variables best characterise the influence of largescale circulation on daily maximum ozone over Europe. The authors found the majority of the variance during spring over the entire EU continent is accounted for in the 24 h lag autocorrelation while during summer the maximum temperature is the principal explanatory variable over continental EU.…”

Section: Temporal Characteristics Of the Error Of Ozonementioning

confidence: 99%

Advanced error diagnostics of the CMAQ and Chimere modelling systems within the AQMEII3 model evaluation framework

et al. 2017

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Abstract. The work here complements the overview analysis of the modelling systems participating in the third phase of the Air Quality Model Evaluation International Initiative (AQMEII3) by focusing on the performance for hourly surface ozone by two modelling systems, Chimere for Europe and CMAQ for North America.The evaluation strategy outlined in the course of the three phases of the AQMEII activity, aimed to build up a diagnostic methodology for model evaluation, is pursued here and novel diagnostic methods are proposed. In addition to evaluating the "base case" simulation in which all model components are configured in their standard mode, the analysis also makes use of sensitivity simulations in which the models have been applied by altering and/or zeroing lateral boundary conditions, emissions of anthropogenic precursors, and ozone dry deposition.To help understand of the causes of model deficiencies, the error components (bias, variance, and covariance) of the base case and of the sensitivity runs are analysed in conjunction with timescale considerations and error modelling using the available error fields of temperature, wind speed, and NO x concentration.The results reveal the effectiveness and diagnostic power of the methods devised (which remains the main scope of this study), allowing the detection of the timescale and the fields that the two models are most sensitive to. The representation of planetary boundary layer (PBL) dynamics is pivotal to both models. In particular, (i) the fluctuations slower than ∼ 1.5 days account for 70-85 % of the mean square error of the full (undecomposed) ozone time series; (ii) a recursive, systematic error with daily periodicity is detected, responsible for 10-20 % of the quadratic total error; (iii) errors in representing the timing of the daily transition between stability regimes in the PBL are responsible for a covariance error as large as 9 ppb (as much as the standard deviation of the network-average ozone observations in summer in both Europe and North America); (iv) the CMAQ ozone error has a weak/negligible dependence on the errors in NO 2 , while the error in NO 2 significantly impacts the ozone error produced by Chimere; (v) the response of the models to variations of anthropogenic emissions and boundary conditions show a pronounced spatial heterogeneity, while the seasonal variability of the response is found to be less marked. Only during the winter season does the zeroing of boundary values for North America produce a spatially uniform deterioration of the model accuracy across the majority of the continent.

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“…One of the main advantages of our approach is that synoptic atmospheric conditions can be assessed at every grid-point over the map (or over a particular region). One representative example of its application in terms of air pollution can be found in Otero et al (2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of an extended version of the Jenkinson–Collison classification on CMIP5 models over Europe

2017

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the warmer seasons over Southeast and Southwest Europe, respectively. Our results indicate that in winter the Westerly type has significant impacts on positive anomalies of maximum and minimum temperature over most of Europe. Except in winter, the warmer temperatures are linked to Easterlies, Anticyclonic and Low Flow conditions, especially over the Mediterranean area. Furthermore, we show that changes in the frequency of weather types represent a minor contribution of the total change of European temperatures, which would be mainly driven by changes in the temperature anomalies associated with the weather types themselves.

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Synoptic and meteorological drivers of extreme ozone concentrations over Europe

Cited by 135 publications

References 65 publications

Connections between summer air pollution and stagnation

Connections between summer air pollution and stagnation

Advanced error diagnostics of the CMAQ and Chimere modelling systems within the AQMEII3 model evaluation framework

Assessment of an extended version of the Jenkinson–Collison classification on CMIP5 models over Europe

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