Chemometrics modelling of temporal changes of ozone half hourly concentrations in different monitoring stations

Abstract

Principal Component Analysis and Multivariate Curve Resolution (MCR) chemometrics soft modelling approaches are proposed for the simultaneous analysis of the half hourly tropospheric ozone concentrations over a continuous period of six years at three different monitoring stations. The proposed approach is based on the direct multilinear modelling of experimental data without needing any prior physicochemical, geographical nor meteorological assumptions. By application of the proposed modelling approach, a summarized description of the changes of ozone concentrations due to a reduced number of contributions is achieved. Each one of these contributions is described by a set of diurnal, seasonal, year and location profiles whose interpretation is then possible using the available knowledge. The use of the proposed chemometrics approach can be generalized for the analysis and interpretation of environmental big data sets generated in continuous on-line monitoring of multiple environmental parameters over long time periods and for a large number of monitoring stations.