Lake Breezes and Their Impact on Ground-Level Ozone Transport over Southwestern Ontario and Southeastern Michigan

Abstract

Frequent high concentrations of ground-level ozone over much of eastern North America during the summer of 1988 led to intensified efforts to identify the sources of the precursors of this pollutant and address issues of emissions abatement. The Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment named the Windsor-Quebec City corridor as the area in Canada where higher than acceptable concentrations of ground-level ozone occur most often and for the longest periods of time (CCME, 1990). In response, a field study including intensive atmospheric chemistry and meteorological measurements along the south-western half of the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor was carried out during the summers of 1992 and 1993 under the auspices of the Canadian Institute of Research in Atmospheric Chemistry (CIRAC) (see Melo, 1993). The observation program was named the Southern Ontario Oxidant Study (SONTOS). In 1993, SONTOS was conducted simultaneously with a similar program, called the Southeastern Michigan Ozone Study (SEMOS), in adjacent southeastern Michigan (see Bowne, 1994). These field studies were further augmented by a surface mesoscale meteorological observation program in southwestern Ontario (SOMOS, Southern Ontario Oxidant Study — Meteorological Measurements) carried out by York University and Zephyr North (see Sills et al., 1994).