A Study of Transport of Ozone and Precursor Emissions for Estimating Areas of Influence (AOI) in the Eastern United States

摘要

Long range transport of ozone and its precursors can significantly impact the air quality in downwind regions; the spatial and temporal scales of this transport process are strongly influenced by meteorological conditions. Exceedances of the ozone standard often occur when the ozone precursor emissions from major metropolitanareas interact with the elevated regional pollutant base resulting from such transport. To quantitatively assess the effect of transport of ozone and its precursors, various geographical sensitivity simulations have been designed and performed employing regional photochemical models. The approach that is followed here is called the Rollout approach, where the objective is to assess the Areas of Influence (AOI), i.e., areas whose emissions significantly influence Areas of Violation (AOV), i.e., areas which are in violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for Ozone.