Project Number: 16-008

Research

Title: High Background Ozone Events in the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria Area: Causes, Effects, and Case Studies of Central American Fires

Institution(s) Represented: University of Houston - Yuxuan Wang

Lead PI: Yuxuan Wang

AQRP Project Manager: Elena McDonald-Buller

TCEQ Project Liaison: Doug Boyer

Awarded Amount: $191,366.00

Abstract

A significant fraction of surface ozone in Texas comes from regional background originating from outside the state. Background ozone is particularly variable over the Houston-Galveston-Brazoria (HGB) region due to its unique geographical location and meteorology. Prior analyses of the HGB background ozone have focused predominantly upon averages, not high concentration days or exceptional events. To bridge this gap, the objectives of this project are to identify high background ozone events across the HGB area over the past 16 years (2000-2015), characterize meteorological conditions and anomalous emissions that cause these events, and understand their effects on ozone exceedances. With regard to emission anomalies, the focus will be on fire events from Mexico and Central America, a large fire region globally of unique importance to Texas air quality in springtime and summer whose impact on Texas background ozone has not been quantified.

Integrated analyses of observations and modeling will be conducted to achieve the project objectives. Daily HGB background ozone estimated by researchers at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) will be used as the data source to identify high background ozone days. Different types of meteorological events which may be potentially associated with high background ozone (e.g., cold fronts and thunderstorms) or high local photochemical production (e.g., heat waves and stagnation) will be identified based on the analysis of meteorology data. The relationship between high background ozone days and the meteorological 'event days' will be characterized, e.g., in terms of their overlapping (or the lack of it), and background ozone difference between meteorological 'event days' and 'non-event days' will be evaluated. Anomalies in fire emissions leading to high background ozone will be mapped through spatiotemporal sampling of the Fire INventory from NCAR (FINN) along background trajectories of air masses affecting the HGB area prior to and during the selected high background ozone days. The GEOS-Chem global chemistry transport model, with the FINN inventory implemented, will be used to simulate a number of case studies of large Central American fires and estimate the perturbations caused by ozone precursor emissions from those fires on background ozone concentrations in Texas and the HGB area. Finally, we will develop a quantitative estimate of the effects of background ozone versus local production on ozone exceedance cases in the HGB area and the dependence of such effects on meteorology and Central America fire emissions.

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Research

Research

FY 2016 - 2017

Project Number: 16-008