Ozone Modeling Using Neural Networks

Abstract

Abstract Ozone models for the city of Tulsa were developed using neural network modeling techniques. The neural models were developed using meteorological data from the Oklahoma Mesonet and ozone, nitric oxide, and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) data from Environmental Protection Agency monitoring sites in the Tulsa area. An initial model trained with only eight surface meteorological input variables and NO2 was able to simulate ozone concentrations with a correlation coefficient of 0.77. The trained model was then used to evaluate the sensitivity to the primary variables that affect ozone concentrations. The most important variables (NO2, temperature, solar radiation, and relative humidity) showed response curves with strong nonlinear codependencies. Incorporation of ozone concentrations from the previous 3 days into the model increased the correlation coefficient to 0.82. As expected, the ozone concentrations correlated best with the most recent (1-day previous) values. The model’s correlation coefficient was i...