ACPD Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions ACPD 1680-7375 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acpd-10-12079-2010 Impacts of transported background ozone on California air quality during the ARCTAS-CARB period – a multi-scale modeling study Huang M. 1 Carmichael G. R. 1 Adhikary B. 1 2 Spak S. N. 1 Kulkarni S. 1 Cheng Y. 1 Wei C. 1 Tang Y. 3 Parrish D. D. 4 Oltmans S. J. 4 D'Allura A. 5 Kaduwela A. 6 Cai C. 6 Weinheimer A. J. 7 Wong M. 8 Pierce R. B. 9 Al-Saadi J. A. 10 Streets D. G. 11 Zhang Q. 11 Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, the University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Nepal Meso-scale modeling, NOAA/NCEP/EMC, W/NP2, NOAA, Camp Springs, MD, USA NOAA/ESRL, Boulder, CO, USA ARIANET Srl, Milano, Italy California Air Resource Board, Sacramento, CA, USA NCAR, Boulder, CO, USA The University of Maryland, MD, USA NOAA/NESDIS, Madison, WI, USA NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA, USA Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL, USA 10 05 2010 10 5 12079 12131 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/12079/2010/acpd-10-12079-2010.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/10/12079/2010/acpd-10-12079-2010.pdf

Multi-scale tracer and full-chemistry simulations with the STEM atmospheric chemistry model are used to analyze the effects of transported background ozone (O<sub>3</sub>) from the eastern Pacific on California air quality during the ARCTAS-CARB experiment conducted in June 2008. Previous work has focused on the importance of long-range transport of O<sub>3</sub> to North America air quality in springtime. However during this summer experiment the long-range transport of O<sub>3</sub> is also shown to be important. Simulated and observed O<sub>3</sub> transport patterns from the coast to inland northern California are shown to vary based on meteorological conditions and the oceanic O<sub>3</sub> profiles, which are strongly episodically affected by Asian inflows. Analysis of the correlations of O<sub>3</sub> at various altitudes above the coastal site at Trinidad Head and at a downwind surface site in northern California, show that under long-range transport events, high O<sub>3</sub> air-masses (O<sub>3</sub>&gt;60 ppb) at altitudes between about 2 and 4 km can be transported inland and can significantly influence surface O<sub>3</sub> 20–30 h later. These results show the importance of characterizing the vertical structure of the lateral boundary conditions (LBC) needed in air quality simulations. The importance of the LBC on O<sub>3</sub> prediction during this period is further studied through a series of sensitivity studies using different forms of LBC. It is shown that the use of the LBC downscaled from RAQMS global model that assimilated MLS and OMI data improves the model performance. We also show that the predictions can be further improved through the use of LBC based on NASA DC-8 airborne observations during the ARCTAS-CARB experiment. These results indicate the need to develop observational strategies to improve the representation of the vertical and temporal variations in the air over the eastern Pacific.

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