Global Perspective of Drought Impacts on Ozone Pollution Episodes

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.1c07260
• Publication Date: 2022-03-17T21:49:40Z
• Authors: Yadong Lei; Xu Yue; Hong Liao; Lin Zhang; Hao Zhou; Chenguang Tian; Cheng Gong; Yimian Ma; Yang Cao; Roger Seco; Thomas Karl; Mark Potosnak
• Keywords: Air Pollutants; Drought; Vegetation feedbacks; 15. Life on land; 01 natural sciences; 6. Clean water; Droughts; Chemistry−vegetation model; Ozone pollution; Ozone; 13. Climate action; Air Pollution; 11. Sustainability; Meteorological processes; Ecosystem; Environmental Monitoring; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Ozone (O3) pollution threatens global public health and damages ecosystem productivity. Droughts modulate surface O3 through meteorological processes vegetation feedbacks. Unraveling these influences is difficult with traditional chemical transport models. Here, using an atmospheric chemistry–vegetation coupled model in combination a suite of existing measurements, we investigate the drought impacts on explore main driving processes. Relative to mean state, accelerated photochemical rates dominate enhancement during droughts except for eastern U.S. western Europe, where reduced stomatal uptakes make comparable contributions. During 1990–2012, simulated frequency episodes Europe decreases greatly negative trend −5.5 ± 6.6 days per decade following reductions anthropogenic emissions if meteorology fixed. However, such decreased weakened −2.1 3.8 decade, which closer observed −2.9 1.1 when year-to-year applied because increased alone offset 43% effects from air control. Our results highlight that more stringent controls precursors are necessary mitigate higher risks by warming world.