Ozone Transport and Mixing Processes in the Boundary Layer Observed with Lidar during Discover-AQ

Christoph J Senff1, Andrew O'Neil Langford2, Raul J Alvarez II II2, Aditya Choukulkar3, Alan Brewer2, Ann M Weickmann3, Guillaume Kirgis4, Scott Sandberg5, Michael Hardesty3, Ruben Delgado6, Russell Long7 and Steven S Brown8, (1)NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)NOAA ESRL, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)CIRES/NOAA ESRL, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, United States, (5)NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, United States, (6)Hampton University, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Hampton, VA, United States, (7)Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, Research Triangle Park, NC, United States, (8)NOAA, Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States
Abstract:
The final two Discover-AQ air quality studies were conducted in Houston, TX in September 2013 and the Colorado Front Range in July/August 2014. These two regions are characterized by different ozone precursor sources and exhibit unique regional wind flow patterns. During these studies, NOAA deployed its truck-based, scanning TOPAZ ozone lidar to document the vertical structure and temporal evolution of ozone concentrations from near the surface up to about 2.5 km above ground level. In Houston, TOPAZ was located next to a radar wind profiler while during the Colorado campaign, Doppler wind lidars collocated with TOPAZ measured wind profiles and vertical velocity statistics throughout the boundary layer (BL). For both studies, nearby in situ sensors provided continuous observations of surface ozone and NOx. These combinations of remote and in situ sensors lend themselves to study the influence of BL transport and mixing processes on surface-level ozone. In this presentation, we focus on characterizing and quantifying changes in surface ozone due to several BL processes, including the Houston land-sea breeze circulation, the terrain-driven BL flow in the Colorado Front Range area, thunderstorm outflows, BL growth rate and depth, and entrainment of air from the residual layer or lower free troposphere into the BL.
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