Tropospheric Ozone at High Latitudes in Clean and Polluted Air Masses, a Climatological Study

Abstract

Several years of continuous measurements of surfaceozone at Norwegian monitoring sites are studied in aclimatological way. The monitoring sites are at rurallocations extending from 58°N, a few hundredkilometers from the European continent and into theArctic at 79°N. The ozone observations are sorted intoclasses of integrated NOx emissions along 96 h backtrajectories. The average seasonal cycles of ozone areestimated for each class separately. The differencesindicate the change from the background air due toanthropogenic emissions. The average seasonal cycle ofozone in the cleanest air masses showed a maximum inspring and a minimum during summer and autumn at allsites, but the spring maximum was more pronounced atthe southernmost locations. Polluted air masses showedan ozone deficit during winter and a surplus duringsummer. The deviation from the background was clearlylinked to the integrated NOx emission along thetrajectories. In summer the calculations indicate thatthe number of ozone molecules formed per NOx moleculedrops with increasing emissions. The average seasonalcycle of ozone at Birkenes for different transportsectors indicate that the most pronounced ozoneformation takes place in air masses from E-Europe/Russia.