Characteristics of Summer Tropospheric Ozone over East Asia in a Chemistry-climate Model Simulation

Abstract

It is important to understand the variability of tropospheric ozone since it is both a major pollutant affecting human health and a greenhouse gas influencing global climate. We analyze the characteristics of East Asia tropospheric ozone simulated in a chemistry-climate model. We use a global chemical transport model, driven by the prescribed meteorological fields from an air-sea coupled climate model simulation. Compared with observed data, the ozone simulation shows differences in distribution and concentration levels; in the vicinity of the Korean Peninsula, a large error occurred in summer. Our analysis reveals that this bias is mainly due to the difference in atmospheric circulation, as the anomalous southerly winds lead to the decrease in tropospheric ozone in this region. In addition, observational data have shown that the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) reduces tropospheric ozone across the southern China/Korean Peninsula/Japan region. In the model, the ozone changes associated with WNPSH are shifted westward relative to the observations. Our findings suggest that the variations in WNPSH should be considered in predicting tropospheric ozone concentrations.