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Nitrogen oxides and ozone in Portugal: trends and ozone estimation in an urban and a rural site

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Abstract

This study provides an analysis of the spatial distribution and trends of NO, NO2 and O3 concentrations in Portugal between 1995 and 2010. Furthermore, an estimation model for daily ozone concentrations was developed for an urban and a rural site. NO concentration showed a significant decreasing trend in most urban stations. A decreasing trend in NO2 is only observed in the stations with less influence from emissions of primary NO2. Several stations showed a significant upward trend in O3 as a result of the decrease in the NO/NO2 ratio. In the northern rural region, ozone showed a strong correlation with wind direction, highlighting the importance of long-range transport. In the urban site, most of the variance is explained by the NO2/NOX ratio. The results obtained by the ozone estimation model in the urban site fit 2013 observed data. In the rural site, the estimated ozone during extreme events agrees with observed concentration.

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Agência Portuguesa do Ambiente (QualAr) for providing pollutants data and Dr. Claire Thomas at Transvalor S.A. for providing solar radiation data series. This study was partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (Grants TEC2014-57821-R and CGL2014-52556-R), by FEDER funds through the Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade (COMPETE) and by Portuguese national funds through Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), within the framework of the CLICURB project “Urban Atmospheric Quality, Climate Change and Resilience” EXCL/AAGMAA/0383/2012. The University of León has also partially supported this study through the Programa Propio 2015. E. Alonso-Blanco acknowledges the FPI grant to carry out the doctoral thesis/PhD at the Research Centre for Energy, Environment and Technology (CIEMAT).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics (IMARENAB), University of León, León, 24071, Spain

    José Manuel Fernández-Guisuraga, Amaya Castro, Ana Calvo, Carlos Blanco-Alegre & Roberto Fraile

  2. Centre for Environment and Marine Studies, Department of Environment, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Célia Alves

  3. Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT), Department of Environment, 28040, Madrid, Spain

    Elisabeth Alonso-Blanco

  4. Centre for Environment and Marine Studies, Department of Physics, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Alfredo Rocha

Authors
  1. José Manuel Fernández-Guisuraga
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  2. Amaya Castro
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  3. Célia Alves
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  4. Ana Calvo
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  5. Elisabeth Alonso-Blanco
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  6. Carlos Blanco-Alegre
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  7. Alfredo Rocha
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  8. Roberto Fraile
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roberto Fraile.

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Responsible editor: Constantini Samara

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Fernández-Guisuraga, J.M., Castro, A., Alves, C. et al. Nitrogen oxides and ozone in Portugal: trends and ozone estimation in an urban and a rural site. Environ Sci Pollut Res 23, 17171–17182 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6888-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-016-6888-6

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