Atmospheric transport drives regional interactions of ozone pollution in China

In recent years, ozone pollution becomes a serious environmental issue in China. A good understanding of source-receptor relationships of ozone transport from aboard and inside China is beneficial to mitigating ozone pollution there. To date, these issues have not been comprehensively assessed, especially for highly polluted regions in the central and eastern China (CEC), including the North China Plain (NCP), Twain-Hu region (THR), Yangtze River Delta (YRD), Pearl River Delta (PRD), and Sichuan Basin (SCB). Here, based on simulations over 2013-2020 from a well-validated chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem, we show that foreign ozone accounts for a large portion of surface ozone over CEC, ranging from 25.0% in THR to 39.4% in NCP. Focusing on transport of domestic ozone between the five regions in CEC, we find that atmospheric transport can largely modulate regional interactions of ozone pollution in China. At the surface, THR receives the largest amount of ozone from the other four regions (54.2% of domestic ozone in the receptor region, the same in below), followed by PRD (32.3%), SCB (26.7%), YRD (21.1%), and NCP (18.0%). Meanwhile, YRD exports largest amount of ozone to the other regions, ranging from 8.9% in SCB to 28.4% in THR. Although SCB is relatively isolated and thus impacts NCP, YRD, and PRD weakly (< 2.2%), export of SCB ozone to THR reaches 9.3%. The regional ozone transport over CEC, occurring mostly in the lower troposphere, is mainly modulated by the East Asian monsoon circulations, proximity between source and receptor regions, seasonal changes of ozone production, and topography.

The Role of Monsoon-like Zonally Asymmetric Heating in Interhemispheric Transport

While the importance of the seasonal migration of the zonally averaged Hadley circulation on interhemispheric transport of trace gases has been recognized, few studies have examined the role of the zonally asymmetric monsoonal circulation. This study investigates the role of monsoon-like zonally asymmetric heating on interhemispheric transport using a dry atmospheric model that is forced by idealized Newtonian relaxation to a prescribed radiative equilibrium temperature. When only the seasonal cycle of zonally symmetric heating is considered, the mean age of air in the Southern Hemisphere since last contact with the Northern Hemisphere midlatitude boundary layer, is much larger than the observations. The introduction of monsoon-like zonally asymmetric heating not only reduces the mean age of tropospheric air to more realistic values, but also produces an upper-tropospheric cross-equatorial transport pathway in boreal summer that resembles the transport pathway simulated in the NASA Global Modeling Initiative (GMI) Chemistry Transport Model driven with MERRA meteorological fields. These results highlight the monsoon-induced eddy circulation plays an important role in the interhemispheric transport of long-lived chemical constituents.

Seasonality of global and Arctic black carbon processes in the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme models

This study quantifies black carbon (BC) processes in three global climate models and one chemistry transport model, with focus on the seasonality of BC transport, emissions, wet and dry deposition in the Arctic. In the models, transport of BC to the Arctic from lower latitudes is the major BC source for this region. Arctic emissions are very small. All models simulated a similar annual cycle of BC transport from lower latitudes to the Arctic, with maximum transport occurring in July. Substantial differences were found in simulated BC burdens and vertical distributions, with Canadian Atmospheric Global Climate Model (CanAM) (Norwegian Earth System Model, NorESM) producing the strongest (weakest) seasonal cycle. CanAM also has the shortest annual mean residence time for BC in the Arctic followed by Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute Multiscale Atmospheric Transport and Chemistry model, Community Earth System Model, and NorESM. Overall, considerable differences in wet deposition efficiencies in the models exist and are a leading cause of differences in simulated BC burdens. Results from model sensitivity experiments indicate that convective scavenging outside the Arctic reduces the mean altitude of BC residing in the Arctic, making it more susceptible to scavenging by stratiform (layer) clouds in the Arctic. Consequently, scavenging of BC in convective clouds outside the Arctic acts to substantially increase the overall efficiency of BC wet deposition in the Arctic, which leads to low BC burdens and a more pronounced seasonal cycle compared to simulations without convective BC scavenging. In contrast, the simulated seasonality of BC concentrations in the upper troposphere is only weakly influenced by wet deposition in stratiform clouds, whereas lower tropospheric concentrations are highly sensitive.

Marked long-term decline in ambient CO mixing ratio in SE England, 1997-2014: evidence of policy success in improving air quality

Atmospheric CO at Egham in SE England has shown a marked and progressive decline since 1997, following adoption of strict controls on emissions. The Egham site is uniquely positioned to allow both assessment and comparison of 'clean Atlantic background' air and CO-enriched air downwind from the London conurbation. The decline is strongest (approximately 50 ppb per year) in the 1997-2003 period but continues post 2003. A 'local CO increment' can be identified as the residual after subtraction of contemporary background Atlantic CO mixing ratios from measured values at Egham. This increment, which is primarily from regional sources (during anticyclonic or northerly winds) or from the European continent (with easterly air mass origins), has significant seasonality, but overall has declined steadily since 1997. On many days of the year CO measured at Egham is now not far above Atlantic background levels measured at Mace Head (Ireland). The results are consistent with MOPITT satellite observations and 'bottom-up' inventory results. Comparison with urban and regional background CO mixing ratios in Hong Kong demonstrates the importance of regional, as opposed to local reduction of CO emission. The Egham record implies that controls on emissions subsequent to legislation have been extremely successful in the UK.

Reconstruction of centennial-scale fluxes of chemical elements in the Australian coastal environment using seagrass archives

The study of a Posidonia australis sedimentary archive has provided a record of changes in element concentrations (Al, Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn, Cr, Cd, Co, As, Cu, Ni and S) over the last 3000 years in the Australian marine environment. Human-derived contamination in Oyster Harbor (SW Australia) started ~100 years ago (AD ~1900) and exponentially increased until present. This appears to be related to European colonization of Australia and the subsequent impact of human activities, namely mining, coal and metal production, and extensive agriculture. Two contamination periods of different magnitude have been identified: Expansion period (EXP, AD ~1900-1970) and Establishment period (EST, AD ~1970 to present). Enrichments of chemical elements with respect to baseline concentrations (in samples older than ~115 cal years BP) were found for all elements studied in both periods, except for Ni, As and S. The highest enrichment factors were obtained for the EST period (ranging from 1.3-fold increase in Cu to 7.2-fold in Zn concentrations) compared to the EXP period (1.1-fold increase for Cu and Cr to 2.4-fold increase for Pb). Zinc, Pb, Mn and Co concentrations during both periods were 2- to 7-fold higher than baseline levels. This study demonstrates the value of Posidonia mats as long-term archives of element concentrations and trends in coastal ecosystems. We also provide preliminary evidence on the potential for Posidonia meadows to act as significant long-term biogeochemical sinks of chemical elements.

Intercontinental transport of aerosols and photochemical oxidants from Asia and its consequences

The intercontinental transport of aerosols and photochemical oxidants from Asia is a crucial issue for air quality concerns in countries downwind of the significant emissions and concentrations of pollutants occurring in this important region of the world. Since the lifetimes of some important pollutants are long enough to be transported over long distance in the troposphere, regional control strategies for air pollution in downwind countries might be ineffective without considering the effects of long-range transport of pollutants from Asia. Field campaigns provide strong evidence for the intercontinental transport of Asian pollutants. They, together with ground-based observations and model simulations, show that the air quality over parts of North America is being affected by the pollutants transported from Asia. This paper examines the current understanding of the intercontinental transport of gases and aerosols from Asia and resulting effects on air quality, and on the regional and global climate system.

Evidence from the Pacific troposphere for large global sources of oxygenated organic compounds

The presence of oxygenated organic compounds in the troposphere strongly influences key atmospheric processes. Such oxygenated species are, for example, carriers of reactive nitrogen and are easily photolysed, producing free radicals-and so influence the oxidizing capacity and the ozone-forming potential of the atmosphere-and may also contribute significantly to the organic component of aerosols. But knowledge of the distribution and sources of oxygenated organic compounds, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, is limited. Here we characterize the tropospheric composition of oxygenated organic species, using data from a recent airborne survey conducted over the tropical Pacific Ocean (30 degrees N to 30 degrees S). Measurements of a dozen oxygenated chemicals (carbonyls, alcohols, organic nitrates, organic pernitrates and peroxides), along with several C2-C8 hydrocarbons, reveal that abundances of oxygenated species are extremely high, and collectively, oxygenated species are nearly five times more abundant than non-methane hydrocarbons in the Southern Hemisphere. Current atmospheric models are unable to correctly simulate these findings, suggesting that large, diffuse, and hitherto-unknown sources of oxygenated organic compounds must therefore exist. Although the origin of these sources is still unclear, we suggest that oxygenated species could be formed via the oxidation of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, the photochemical degradation of organic matter in the oceans, and direct emissions from terrestrial vegetation.