Abstract
Tropospheric ozone pollution is a critical air-quality concern in China. However, the most effective mitigation approach remains unclear, with prioritizing the reduction of volatile organic compounds or nitrogen oxides (NOX) currently still under debate. Here we analyse observational measurements of ozone in August, as well as its precursors, from urban Beijing between 2006 and 2020. We show that, despite a continuous increase in the primary atmospheric oxidant (hydroxyl radical, OH), ozone increased until 2014 and then decreased. This ozone trend can be explained by changes in OH turnover rate, primarily determined by the reactivity ratio between volatile organic compounds and NOX. Overall, reactive abatement of volatile organic compounds should be a near-future priority for ozone-pollution control in China, followed by further NOX controls.
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Data availability
The data and code to generate the results in the manuscript are freely available at Open Research Data Repository of the Max Planck Society (https://doi.org/10.17617/3.LEFS4A). Source data are provided with this paper.
Code availability
The box model is available from https://sites.google.com/site/wolfegm/models.
Change history
18 December 2023
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01360-7
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Acknowledgements
X.L. received financial support from the Beijing Municipal Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (JQ21030) and from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (91644108, 91844301). F.R. and A.W. received financial support from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany (01LP1929A, Practice). Hang Su was supported by the National Key Scientific and Technological Infrastructure project “Earth System Science Numerical Simulator Facility” (EarthLab).
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H.S., Y.L., Y.Z. and Y.C. conceived and designed this study, and revised the Article critically. W.W. and X.L. acquired, analysed and interpreted data, drafted the Article, and revised it critically. R.N. and Y.C. performed the chemical transport model simulations. D.D.P., F.R., A.W., R.N., Z.T. and U.P. revised the Article critically. Q.Z. provided the emission inventory data. Y.L., S.L., Y.W., S.C., K.L., M.H., L.Z., M.S., C.H., X.T., K.M.L., L.C. and M.F. collected data.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 Seasonal variation of O3 in Beijing.
The dot represents the mean of MDA8 O3 concentrations for each month during 2014-2020 and the error bar represents the standard deviation, with sample size of 1940 daily values in total (averages of 12 NMN sites in Beijing, for which the measurement data are available since 2014).
Extended Data Fig. 2 Variations in column concentrations of NO2 and formaldehyde (HCHO) in Beijing, August between 2006 and 2020.
Results are from satellite measurements.
Extended Data Fig. 3
Variations in observed VOCR, NOXR, VOCR/NOXR, O3 and normalized O3 in August in Shanghai (A), Yangtze River Delta and Hong Kong (B), Pearl River Delta under clear-sky conditions.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Model-simulated relationship between OH, O3 and precursors - VOC and NOX.
The levels of NOXR and VOCR in 2006, 2014 and 2020 are marked in dashed lines.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Correlation between kHO2+NO[HO2][NO] and [OH]×VOCR simulated by the box model.
VOCR and NOXR ranges from 0 to 16 s-1 and from 0 to 10 s-1 with respective 40 equal-distance steps. Each dot represents a combination of VOCR and NOXR levels. The dots are colored by different ChL levels. The black line corresponds to 1:1 ratio.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Isopleth plots for O3 as a function of NOXR and VOCR in summer, Shanghai.
Red solid circles represent the average levels of MDA8 O3 for each year during 2011-2019, and the solid lines indicate fits to the trend. The yellow dotted lines indicate the VOCR level from biogenic emissions. The blue and magenta arrows indicate future routes for VOCs and NOX abatement that mitigate ozone effectively in the short term (2019-2025) and long term (after 2025), respectively.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Text 1–7, Figs. 1–15 and Tables 1 and 2.
Supplementary Data 1
Source data of Supplementary Figures
Source data
Source Data for Figs. 1–4 and Extended Data Fig. 1-6
Fig. 1. Trends of VOCR, NOxR, VOCR/NOXR, O3 and normalized O3. Figure 2. Model-simulated OH concentrations and OH×VOCR. Figure 3. Trends of P(ROX) and ChL, diurnal profiles of modeled rates of primary ROX production, dependence of OVOCR on VOCR/NOXR ratio. Figure 4. Isopleth plots for O3 and total OH turnover rate as a function of NOXR and VOCR. ED Fig. 1. Seasonal variation of O3 in Beijing. ED Fig. 2. Column concentrations of NO2 and formaldehyde (HCHO) in Beijing. ED Fig. 3. Observed VOCR, NOXR, VOCR/NOXR, O3 and normalized O3 in August in Shanghai and Hong Kong. ED Fig. 4. Model-simulated relationship between OH, O3 and precursors - VOC and NOX. ED Fig. 5. Correlation between kHO2+NO[HO2][NO] and [OH]×VOCR simulated by the box model. ED Fig. 6. Isopleth plots for O3 as a function of NOXR and VOCR in summer, Shanghai.
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Wang, W., Li, X., Cheng, Y. et al. Ozone pollution mitigation strategy informed by long-term trends of atmospheric oxidation capacity. Nat. Geosci. 17, 20–25 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01334-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-023-01334-9
