Seasonal prediction of surface O3-related meteorological conditions in summer in North China

Abstract

Ground-level ozone concentrations have evidently increased, and surface O3 pollution has become one of the major air pollutions in the summer in North China. Climate factors could modulate the O3 concentrations in summer. The surface O3-related meteorological conditions in the summer in North China were predicted in this study. Based on the annual increment approach, five observed preceding predictors were used to establish the perdiction models whose performance significantly exceeded the Climate Forecast System. After adding the signals from the climate prediction model, the percentage of the same sign increased to 93.9%, and the bias of the independent tests in 2017 and 2018 were negligible for the climate anomalies. The linear correlation coefficient between the observed and simulated values was 0.84 (P < .01). It is notable that the hybrid prediction models visibly performed better in the recent decade than in previous decades, which played important roles and provided potentials to execute real-time seasonal predictions. This prediction model could allow the government to forecast summer O3 pollution conditions in advance and consequently determine whether extra emission reductions are required to counteract the climate effects.