Climatological Study of Ozone over Saudi Arabia

Ayman Badawy,Motirh Al-Mutairi,Saleha Al-Kallas,Mostafa Morsy,Abdallah Abdeldym,Heshmat Abdel Basset

doi:10.3390/atmos12101275

Ayman Badawy, Motirh Al-Mutairi + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos12101275

Copy DOI

Abstract

In this work, analysis of the variability of total column ozone (TCO) over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been conducted during the 1979–2020 period based on the ECMWF-ERA5 dataset. It is found that the highest values of TCO appear in the spring and winter months especially over north KSA, while the lowest values of TCO occur in the autumn months. The highest values of the coefficient of variation (COV) for TCO occur in winter and spring as they gradually decrease southward, while the lowest COV values appear in summer and autumn. The Mann–Kendall test indicates that the positive trend values are dominant for the annual and seasonal TCO values over KSA, and they gradually increase southward. The study of long-term variability of annual TCO at KSA stations shows negative trend values are the dominant behavior during the 1979–2004 period, while positive trend values are the dominant behavior during the 2004–2020 period. The Mann–Whitney test assessed the abrupt change of the annual TCO time series at 28 stations in KSA and confirmed that there is an abrupt change towards increasing values around 2000, 2005, and 2014. The climatological monthly mean of the ozone mass mixing ratio (OMR) is studied at three stations representing the north, middle, and south of KSA. The highest values of OMR are found in the layer between 20 and 4 hPa with the maximum in summer and early autumn, while the lowest values are found below 100 hPa.

Highlights

High concentrations of ozone (O3) at the surface of the Earth are among the most significant pollutants that cause great environmental problems and affect air quality, human and animal health, and agricultural crop production [1,2,3]
Analysis of the results showed that total column ozone (TCO) is a function of latitude and time, where the TCO values decrease gradually towards the south and change over the months and seasons of the year
The highest TCO values occur in the spring and winter months, especially in northern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and the lowest values appear in the autumn months

Summary

Introduction

High concentrations of ozone (O3) at the surface of the Earth are among the most significant pollutants that cause great environmental problems and affect air quality, human and animal health, and agricultural crop production [1,2,3]. O3 represents one of the most significant greenhouse gases after carbon dioxide and methane [4,5] It performs a crucial role in the radiative balance process in the atmosphere [6], it represents only 0.0012% of the total atmospheric composition [7]. O3 absorbs most of the energetic and dangerous ultraviolet radiation (UV) emitted by the sun [9,10,11] It is of great importance to protecting the biosphere [12,13], and represents the main source of heat and forms the structure of the stratospheric temperature [13]. Pollution transport has considerable implications on ozone quantities, the environment, climate, and air quality [22,23,24]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion