Estimate of OH trends over one decade in North American cities

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2117399119
• Publication Date: 2022-04-13T09:53:06Z
• Authors: Qindan Zhu; Joshua L. Laughner; Ronald C. Cohen
• Keywords: Air Pollutants; Multidisciplinary; 550; hydroxyl radical; ozone control; Atmosphere; Hydroxyl Radical; 01 natural sciences; NOx emission; Ozone; 13. Climate action; Physical Sciences; North America; 11. Sustainability; Cities; Environmental Monitoring; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Significance OH is the critical chemical setting removal rates of local pollutants in the atmosphere. The importance of OH to tropospheric chemistry stands in stark contrast to the absence of long-term measurements. Here we synthesize a machine learning technique, satellite observations, and simulations from a state-of-the-art chemical model to estimate OH trends between 2005 and 2014 in 49 North American cities. Compared to the summertime OH in 2005, the OH in 2014 exhibits changes that range from –17 to +11% in different cities. The variation of OH over one decade can be explained by the chemical regime shifts over the years. The identification of chemical regime, in turn, sheds light on the effective policy for controlling ozone.