Climate change penalty and benefit on surface ozone: a global perspective based on CMIP6 earth system models

Prodromos Zanis,Dimitris Akritidis,Twan Van Noije,Vaishali Naik,Aristeidis K Georgoulias,Steven Turnock,Konstantinos Tsigaridis,Fiona M O’Connor,Susanne E Bauer,Larry W Horowitz,Sophie Szopa,James Keeble,Makoto Deushi,Naga Oshima,Philippe Le Sager

doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac4a34

Abstract

This work presents an analysis of the effect of climate change on surface ozone discussing the related penalties and benefits around the globe from the global modelling perspective based on simulations with five CMIP6 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6) Earth System Models. As part of AerChemMIP (Aerosol Chemistry Model Intercomparison Project) all models conducted simulation experiments considering future climate (ssp370SST) and present-day climate (ssp370pdSST) under the same future emissions trajectory (SSP3-7.0). A multi-model global average climate change benefit on surface ozone of −0.96 ± 0.07 ppbv °C−1 is calculated which is mainly linked to the dominating role of enhanced ozone destruction with higher water vapour abundances under a warmer climate. Over regions remote from pollution sources, there is a robust decline in mean surface ozone concentration on an annual basis as well as for boreal winter and summer varying spatially from −0.2 to −2 ppbv °C−1, with strongest decline over tropical oceanic regions. The implication is that over regions remote from pollution sources (except over the Arctic) there is a consistent climate change benefit for baseline ozone due to global warming. However, ozone increases over regions close to anthropogenic pollution sources or close to enhanced natural biogenic volatile organic compounds emission sources with a rate ranging regionally from 0.2 to 2 ppbv C−1, implying a regional surface ozone penalty due to global warming. Overall, the future climate change enhances the efficiency of precursor emissions to generate surface ozone in polluted regions and thus the magnitude of this effect depends on the regional emission changes considered in this study within the SSP3_7.0 scenario. The comparison of the climate change impact effect on surface ozone versus the combined effect of climate and emission changes indicates the dominant role of precursor emission changes in projecting surface ozone concentrations under future climate change scenarios.

Highlights

Surface ozone is widely recognized as a pollutant having an impact on human health, crops, and ecosystems while tropospheric ozone plays a key role in the oxidizing capacity of the troposphere and is an important greenhouse gas (Monks et al 2015, Young et al 2018)
This study provides, for the first time to our knowledge, a global multi-model perspective of climate change penalty and benefit on regional surface ozone based on quantitative estimates from five CMIP6 models of the spatially distributed ∆O3/∆T index and the ozone changes for different warming levels
The annual cycle of surface ozone (2005–2014) for each model and the multi-model mean is compared with observations from the Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report across different world regions in figure S1, following that done in Turnock et al (2020)

Summary

January 2022

Aristeidis K Georgoulias, Susanne E Bauer, Makoto Deushi , Larry W Horowitz, James Keeble, Philippe Le Sager, Fiona M O’Connor, Naga Oshima , Konstantinos Tsigaridis and Twan van Noije.

Introduction

Data and methodology

Results

Discussion and conclusions

Key-note messages