Impact of Taihu Lake on city ozone in the Yangtze River Delta

Abstract

The lake-breeze at Taihu Lake generates a different specific heat capacity between the water body and the surrounding land. Taihu Lake has a significant impact on the atmospheric conditions and the air quality in the Yangtze River Delta. This phenomenon is referred to as the Taihu Lake effect. In this study, two simulations were conducted to determine the impact of the Taihu Lake effect in the reference experiment (R-E) and sensitivity experiments (NO_TH). The control simulations demonstrated that the meteorological field and the spatial distribution of ozone (O3) concentrations over Taihu lake obviously changed once the land-use type of water body was substituted by cropland. The surface temperature of Taihu Lake was reduced under the impact of Taihu Lake, and a huge temperature difference caused a strong lake-breeze effect. The results also showed that the difference in the average concentrations of O3 between the R-E and NO TH experiments reached 12 ppbv in most areas of Taihu Lake, all day, on 20 May 2014. During daytime (0800–1600 LST, LST=UTC+8), the influence of the Taihu Lake effect on O3 in the Suzhou region was not significant. However, the influence of the Taihu Lake effect on O3 in the Suzhou region was obvious during nighttime (1800–2400 LST). The larger changes in the physical and chemical processes were horizontal and vertical advections under the influence of the Taihu Lake effect in Taihu Lake.