The Spatial and Temporal Variability of Ozone in the Houston Metropolitan Area during DISCOVER-AQ and its' Relation to Meteorological Conditions

Barry L Lefer1, James H Flynn III2, Laura Judd1, Xinrong Ren3, Mark Joseph Estes4 and Robert J Griffin5, (1)University of Houston, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Houston, TX, United States, (2)University of Houston, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences, Houston, United States, (3)NOAA, Air Resources Laboratory, College Park, United States, (4)St. Edward's University, Department of Mathematics, Austin, TX, United States, (5)Rice University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Houston, TX, United States
Abstract:
During the 2013 NASA DISCOVER-AQ in Texas, the atmospheric abundance of ozone and its precursor species (NOx and VOCs) were sampled throughout the Houston metropolitan area from a variety of observing platforms, including in situ sampling from the NASA P-3B aircraft, ozonesonde balloons, several mobile ground laboratories, and some 40 different ground-based monitoring sites. This unprecedented array of air quality measurement tools provides both high-temporal and high-spatial resolution sampling of both ozone and ozone production throughout a relatively small (100 km x 100 km) area during a 4-week period in the Fall of 2013. This study will examine the representativeness of this detailed “snapshot” of Houston air quality and how September 2013 fits into both the long-term trends in the local air quality and the current Houston conceptual model. The impact of meteorology as well as the year-to-year variability in meteorological conditions on ozone and ozone production determined from 0-D photochemical box modeling will also be examined.
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