Why is ozone in South Korea and the  Seoul metropolitan area so high and increasing?

Colombi, Nadia K.; Jacob, Daniel J.; Yang, Laura Hyesung; Zhai, Shixian; Shah, Viral; Grange, Stuart K.; Yantosca, Robert M.; Kim, Soontae; Liao, Hong

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4031-2023

Articles | Volume 23, issue 7

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4031-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4031-2023

© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 23, issue 7

Research article

|

05 Apr 2023

Research article |

| 05 Apr 2023

Why is ozone in South Korea and the Seoul metropolitan area so high and increasing?

Nadia K. Colombi, Daniel J. Jacob, Laura Hyesung Yang, Shixian Zhai, Viral Shah, Stuart K. Grange, Robert M. Yantosca, Soontae Kim, and Hong Liao

Data sets

The Korea–United States Air Quality (KORUS-AQ) field study (https://www-air.larc.nasa.gov) J. H. Crawford, J.-Y. Ahn, J. Al-Saadi, L. Chang, L. K. Emmons, J. Kim, G. Lee, J.-H. Park, R. J. Park, J. H. Woo, C.-K. Song, J.-H. Hong, Y.-D. Hong, B. L. Lefer, M. Lee, T. Lee, S. Kim, K.-E. Min, S. S. Yum, H. J. Shin, Y.-W. Kim, J.-S. Choi, J.-S. Park, J. J. Szykman, R. W. Long, C. E. Jordan, I. J. Simpson, A. Fried, J. E. Dibb, S. Cho, and Y. P. Kim https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2020.00163

Short summary

Surface ozone, detrimental to human and ecosystem health, is very high and increasing in South Korea. Using a global model of the atmosphere, we found that emissions from South Korea and China contribute equally to the high ozone observed. We found that in the absence of all anthropogenic emissions over East Asia, ozone is still very high, implying that the air quality standard in South Korea is not practically achievable unless this background external to East Asia can be decreased.