Impact of climate change on surface ozone and deposition of sulphur and nitrogen in Europe

Abstract

Abstract The potential impact of regional climate change on the distribution and deposition of air pollutants in Europe has been studied using a regional chemistry/transport/deposition model, MATCH. MATCH was set up using meteorological output from two 10-year climate change experiments made with the Rossby Centre regional Atmospheric climate model version 1 (RCA1). RCA1 was forced by boundary conditions from two different global climate models using the IPCC IS92a (business as usual) emission scenario. The global mean warming in both the GCMs was 2.6 K and was reached in the period 2050–2070. Simulations with MATCH indicate substantial potential impact of regional climate change on both deposition of oxidised nitrogen and concentrations of surface ozone. The simulations show a strong increase in surface ozone expressed as AOT40 and mean of daily maximum over southern and central Europe and a decrease in northern Europe. The simulated changes in April–September AOT40 are significant in relation to inter-annual variability over extended areas. Changes in deposition of oxidised nitrogen are much smaller and also less coherent due to the strong inter-annual variability in precipitation in the RCA1 simulations and differences in the regional climate change simulated with RCA1 in the two regional scenarios. Changes in simulated annual deposition are significant in relation to inter-annual variability only over small areas. This indicates that longer simulation periods are necessary to establish changes in deposition.