Tropospheric Ozone and Climate Change

Abstract

Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to photochemical smog pollution close to the earth's surface and to stratospheric ozone depletion. There is reason to suspect that the next round of scientific concern will be devoted to the perturbations in the “free troposphere.” Tropospheric ozone has been building up in many regions of the northern hemisphere. Ozone changes in the upper troposphere will exert a considerable impact on global warming. This could affect moisture levels, cloud amount and distribution, precipitation, and atmospheric dynamics on different scales. This paper analyzes: (1) the physical and chemical processes contributing to changes in tropospheric ozone concentration; (2) the observational evidence of previous ozone change; and (3) results drawn from computer modelling of past and future radiative forcing caused by rising ozone concentrations in the upper troposphere. The solar and longwave radiative model developed by Wang et al. (1991) was used for calculating the change ...