Are decadal anthropogenic emission reductions in Europe consistent with surface ozone observations ?

Robert Vautard (1, 2) , Sophie Laval-Szopa (1, 3) , Matthias Beekmann (4) , Laurent Menut (5) , Didier Hauglustaine (1, 6) , Laurence Rouil (7) , Michiel Roemer (8)

1 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
2 ESTIMR - Extrèmes : Statistiques, Impacts et Régionalisation
3 CLIM - Modélisation du climat
4 LISA (UMR_7583) - Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systèmes Atmosphériques
5 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
6 MERMAID - Modelling the Earth Response to Multiple Anthropogenic Interactions and Dynamics
7 INERIS - Institut National de l'Environnement Industriel et des Risques
8 TNO - The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research

The consistency between pollutant emission reductions in Europe during the 1990 - 2002 period and ozone observations is quantitatively verified by 13-year long simulations over the whole period using the regional chemistry-transport model and the EMEP emission inventory. A statistically significant decadal tendency of 0.65 ppb/year is found in the difference between simulated and observed summer 90th percentiles of ozone daily maxima when model emissions are kept constant from year to year. By contrast the use of yearly dependent emissions does not yield a statistically significant percentile difference tendency. The regional structure of the 90th percentile differences shows that emissions may have decreased with a higher rate than assumed in the U. K. and at a lower rate in central Europe. The observed 10th percentiles are also compatible with the assumed emission reductions in Europe during 1990 - 2002, but are of lesser agreement with simulations using a uniform trend in the baseline ozone.

Keywords: OZONE TREND; EMISSION REDUCTION; PHOTOCHEMISTRY; CHIMERE; CHEMISTRY-TRANSPORT MODELLING

Domains: Environmental Sciences

Robert Vautard, Sophie Laval-Szopa, Matthias Beekmann, Laurent Menut, Didier Hauglustaine, et al.. Are decadal anthropogenic emission reductions in Europe consistent with surface ozone observations ?. Geophysical Research Letters, 2006, 33 (13), pp.art n° L13810. ⟨10.1029/2006GL026080⟩. ⟨ineris-00963023⟩