Tropospheric ozone is produced via the photochemical reaction of volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight. Over the past 20 years, serious ozone pollution has been found in the most highly populated and industrialized city clusters in China, such as the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, and Sichuan Basin regions.
To control ozone pollution is a great challenge because of the diverse range of precursors and the nonlinear relationship between ozone concentrations and these precursors. Accurately determining the main sources of ozone is therefore the key to the formulation of a reasonable and efficient ozone control strategy.
A recent article published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters by the research team of Prof. Zhang Meigen, from the State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Boundary Layer Physics and Atmospheric Chemistry, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, summarizes the approaches and main conclusions of studies on the sources of ozone and its precursors for both regional and sectoral sources in China, including back-trajectory analyses and ozone source apportionment based on the observation-based method (OBM) and emissions-based method (EBM).
Read more at Institute Of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy Of Sciences
Image: The 90th percentile of annual MDA8_O3 in (a) 2015 and the difference values during (b) 2015–16, (c) 2016–17, and (d) 2017–18 at the network of 1484 sites operated by the China Ministry of Ecology and Environment. CREDIT: China Ministry of Ecology and Environment / Institute Of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy Of Sciences