Abstract
Abstract. The impact of climate change on surface ozone over Europe was studied using four offline regional chemistry transport models (CTMs) and one online regional integrated climate-chemistry model (CCM), driven by the same global projection of future climate under the SRES A1B scenario. Anthropogenic emissions of ozone precursors from RCP4.5 for year 2000 were used for simulations of both present and future periods in order to isolate the impact of climate change and to assess the robustness of the results across the different models. The sensitivity of the simulated surface ozone to changes in climate between the periods 2000–2009 and 2040–2049 differs by a factor of two between the models, but the general pattern of change with an increase in southern Europe is similar across different models. Emissions of isoprene differ substantially between different CTMs ranging from 1.6 to 8.0 Tg yr−1 for the current climate, partly due to differences in horizontal resolution of meteorological input data. Also the simulated change in total isoprene emissions varies substantially across models explaining part of the different climate response on surface ozone. Ensemble mean changes in summer mean ozone and mean of daily maximum ozone are close to 1 ppb(v) in parts of the land area in southern Europe. Corresponding changes of 95-percentiles of hourly ozone are close to 2 ppb(v) in the same region. In northern Europe ensemble mean for mean and daily maximum show negative changes while there are no negative changes for the higher percentiles indicating that climate impacts on O3 could be especially important in connection with extreme summer events.
Highlights
IntroductionAir pollution is still a major problem in Europe
Despite significant control efforts, air pollution is still a major problem in Europe
The observations are averaged over the period 1997–2003 to be centred on the year of emissions (2000) while the model data are taken from simulations forced by climate model data covering the reference period, 2000–2009
Summary
Air pollution is still a major problem in Europe. Wind and precipitation will affect the chemistry of air pollutants, their emission, transport, concentration, deposition, exposure and effects (DEFRA, 2007; Andersson et al, 2007; Ellingsen et al, 2008; Hedegaard et al, 2008; Isaksen et al, 2009 and references therein; Royal society, 2008). Changes in concentrations of air pollutants can affect the radiation balance and emissions of particulate matter can have impacts on the radiative properties and life cycle of clouds (IPCC, 2007). The Nordic countries and the Arctic region are affected by long-range transport of air pollutants from the main source regions in continental Europe.
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