Tropospheric Ozone Perturbations Induced by Urban Land Expansion in China from 1980 to 2017
Xiaodong Zhang, Xiaohu Jian, Yuan Zhao, Xinrui Liu, Kai‐Jie Chen, Linfei Wang, Shu Tao, Junfeng Liu, Tao Huang, Hong Gao, Yijie Liu, Ruiru Zhugu, Jianmin Ma
Abstract
Urbanization perturbs air pollutants from a dynamic and thermodynamic perspective, which has inspired extensive investigations in China due to rapid urban land expansion in the past four decades. However, knowledge gaps remain in the long-term and nationwide responses to air pollutants to urbanization. The evolution of tropospheric ozone associated with urban land expansion across China was assessed from 1980 to 2017 using a coupled WRF-Chem model based on a recently updated land use change (LUC) data set. The results revealed that urban-land expansion drove growing ozone trends for this period and contributed about 3–9% to its summer maximum concentrations during the 2010s in major urban agglomerations across China. The association between a long-term change in summer O3 concentrations and LUC after excluding the effect of precursor emissions and meteorological conditions and causes of interannual (short-term) variations in O3 concentrations induced by urban-land expansion were also explored by examining the relationships between ozone fluctuations and meteorological variables.