A Simple Method for Simulating Horizontal Ozone Concentration Fields over Coastal Areas: A Case Study of the Seoul Metropolitan Area, Korea

• Main Authors: Cheol-Hee Kim, Yoo-Keun Kim, Hwa Woon Lee, Kyong-Hwan Seo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chinese Geoscience Union 2009-01-01
• Series: Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
• Subjects: Semi-empirical photo chemical model; Ozone concentration simulation; Seoul metropolitan area; VOC emission strength
• Online Access: http://tao.cgu.org.tw/images/attachments/v202p355.pdf

This paper describes a simple semi-empirical photo chemical simulation method to generate horizontal ozone (O3) concentration fields over coastal areas. Based on a simple semi-empirical photochemical reaction model (SEGRS), consisting of a simple photochemical reaction set and a diagnostic wind model, aggregated VOC emission strength is empirically scaled from measured photochemical gas phase concentrations of (O3-2NO-NO2) against cumulative actinic light flux for the case of relatively weak off-shore geostrophic wind at 850 hPa in sum mer. This scaled emission rate for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) is equally applied to horizontal O3 concentration simulation under on-shore synoptic conditions, and results are com pared with observations. The results indicate that spatial distribution patterns and temporal variations of spatially aver aged ground level ozone concentrations are reasonably well simulated. In addition, from the more than 100 box-form SEGRS simulations, close agreement between simulated and ob served daily maximum O3 concentrations suggests that the semi empirical SEGRS model has great potential in getting horizontal ozone distribution pat terns. This indicates that this simple semi-empirical approach to the simulation of O3 concentration pat terns using SEGRS makes for an easy alternative method in multi-year simulation for impact studies of O3 concentrations by lowering heavy computational cost.