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Tropospheric ozone change from 1980 to 2010 dominated by equatorward redistribution of emissions

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Abstract

Ozone is an important air pollutant at the surface1, and the third most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the troposphere2. Since 1980, anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors—methane, non-methane volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides (NOx)—have shifted from developed to developing regions. Emissions have thereby been redistributed equatorwards3,4,5,6, where they are expected to have a stronger effect on the tropospheric ozone burden due to greater convection, reaction rates and NOx sensitivity7,8,9,10,11. Here we use a global chemical transport model to simulate changes in tropospheric ozone concentrations from 1980 to 2010, and to separate the influences of changes in the spatial distribution of global anthropogenic emissions of short-lived pollutants, the magnitude of these emissions, and the global atmospheric methane concentration. We estimate that the increase in ozone burden due to the spatial distribution change slightly exceeds the combined influences of the increased emission magnitude and global methane. Emission increases in Southeast, East and South Asia may be most important for the ozone change, supported by an analysis of statistically significant increases in observed ozone above these regions. The spatial distribution of emissions dominates global tropospheric ozone, suggesting that the future ozone burden will be determined mainly by emissions from low latitudes.

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Figure 1: Tropospheric O3 burden change (ΔBO 3) from 1980 to 2010.
Figure 2: Spatial distributions for ΔBO 3 (tons km−2) from 1980 to 2010.
Figure 3: Zonal annual average O3 change.
Figure 4: Zonal annual average NOy change.

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Acknowledgements

Y.Z. and J.J.W. were funded by National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences grant no. 1 R21 ES022600-01 and Environmental Protection Agency STAR grants no. 834285 and RD83587801, and O.R.C. and A.G. were funded by NOAA’s Health of the Atmosphere and Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Programs. The contents are solely the responsibility of the grantee and do not necessarily represent the official views of the US EPA or other funding sources. We thank the NCAR AMWG for developing and maintaining the diagnostic package for the model evaluation. We acknowledge the free use of O3 observation data from NOAA GMD for the remote sites of Barrow, Mauna Loa, Samoa and South Pole; Global Atmosphere Watch World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases for Hohenpeissenberg, J. Schwab from University at Albany-SUNY for Whiteface Mountain, and P. Young of Lancaster University for processed ozonesonde climatology of ref. 25.

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Author notes

  1. Yuqiang Zhang

    Present address: Present address: Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709, USA.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Sciences and Engineering Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA

    Yuqiang Zhang & J. Jason West

  2. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

    Owen R. Cooper & Audrey Gaudel

  3. Chemical Sciences Division, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA

    Owen R. Cooper & Audrey Gaudel

  4. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771, USA

    Anne M. Thompson

  5. Laboratoire d’Aérologie, CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, FR-31062 Toulouse, France

    Philippe Nédélec

  6. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan

    Shin-Ya Ogino

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Contributions

Y.Z., J.J.W. and O.R.C. designed the study and Y.Z. and J.J.W. planned the model experiments. Y.Z. prepared the emission inputs, performed the model simulations, and prepared the figures. Y.Z. and A.G. conducted data analysis for observations, and J.J.W. and O.R.C. assisted with the data analysis. P.N., S.-Y.O. and A.M.T. provided observational data. Y.Z., J.J.W. and O.R.C. wrote the paper with comments from A.M.T and A.G.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. Jason West.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Zhang, Y., Cooper, O., Gaudel, A. et al. Tropospheric ozone change from 1980 to 2010 dominated by equatorward redistribution of emissions. Nature Geosci 9, 875–879 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2827

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