Articles | Volume 24, issue 10
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6197-2024
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-6197-2024
Technical note
 | 
28 May 2024
Technical note |  | 28 May 2024

Technical note: Challenges in detecting free tropospheric ozone trends in a sparsely sampled environment

Kai-Lan Chang, Owen R. Cooper, Audrey Gaudel, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Peter Effertz, Gary Morris, and Brian C. McDonald

Related authors

Surface ozone trend variability across the United States and the impact of heatwaves (1990–2023)
Kai-Lan Chang, Brian C. McDonald, and Owen R. Cooper
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3674,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3674, 2024
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).
Short summary
Tropical tropospheric ozone distribution and trends from in situ and satellite data
Audrey Gaudel, Ilann Bourgeois, Meng Li, Kai-Lan Chang, Jerald Ziemke, Bastien Sauvage, Ryan M. Stauffer, Anne M. Thompson, Debra E. Kollonige, Nadia Smith, Daan Hubert, Arno Keppens, Juan Cuesta, Klaus-Peter Heue, Pepijn Veefkind, Kenneth Aikin, Jeff Peischl, Chelsea R. Thompson, Thomas B. Ryerson, Gregory J. Frost, Brian C. McDonald, and Owen R. Cooper
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 9975–10000, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9975-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-9975-2024, 2024
Short summary
Fingerprints of the COVID-19 economic downturn and recovery on ozone anomalies at high-elevation sites in North America and western Europe
Davide Putero, Paolo Cristofanelli, Kai-Lan Chang, Gaëlle Dufour, Gregory Beachley, Cédric Couret, Peter Effertz, Daniel A. Jaffe, Dagmar Kubistin, Jason Lynch, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Melissa Puchalski, Timothy Sharac, Barkley C. Sive, Martin Steinbacher, Carlos Torres, and Owen R. Cooper
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 15693–15709, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15693-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-15693-2023, 2023
Short summary
Global tropospheric ozone trends, attributions, and radiative impacts in 1995–2017: an integrated analysis using aircraft (IAGOS) observations, ozonesonde, and multi-decadal chemical model simulations
Haolin Wang, Xiao Lu, Daniel J. Jacob, Owen R. Cooper, Kai-Lan Chang, Ke Li, Meng Gao, Yiming Liu, Bosi Sheng, Kai Wu, Tongwen Wu, Jie Zhang, Bastien Sauvage, Philippe Nédélec, Romain Blot, and Shaojia Fan
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 22, 13753–13782, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-13753-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-13753-2022, 2022
Short summary
Statistical regularization for trend detection: an integrated approach for detecting long-term trends from sparse tropospheric ozone profiles
Kai-Lan Chang, Owen R. Cooper, Audrey Gaudel, Irina Petropavlovskikh, and Valérie Thouret
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9915–9938, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9915-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9915-2020, 2020
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Gases | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Chemistry (chemical composition and reactions)
Seasonal, regional, and vertical characteristics of high-carbon-monoxide plumes along with their associated ozone anomalies, as seen by IAGOS between 2002 and 2019
Thibaut Lebourgeois, Bastien Sauvage, Pawel Wolff, Béatrice Josse, Virginie Marécal, Yasmine Bennouna, Romain Blot, Damien Boulanger, Hannah Clark, Jean-Marc Cousin, Philippe Nedelec, and Valérie Thouret
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13975–14004, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13975-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13975-2024, 2024
Short summary
The potential of drone observations to improve air quality predictions by 4D-Var
Hassnae Erraji, Philipp Franke, Astrid Lampert, Tobias Schuldt, Ralf Tillmann, Andreas Wahner, and Anne Caroline Lange
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13913–13934, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13913-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13913-2024, 2024
Short summary
Process analysis of elevated concentrations of organic acids at Whiteface Mountain, New York
Christopher Lawrence, Mary Barth, John Orlando, Paul Casson, Richard Brandt, Daniel Kelting, Elizabeth Yerger, and Sara Lance
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13693–13713, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13693-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13693-2024, 2024
Short summary
Ozone source attribution in polluted European areas during summer 2017 as simulated with MECO(n)
Markus Kilian, Volker Grewe, Patrick Jöckel, Astrid Kerkweg, Mariano Mertens, Andreas Zahn, and Helmut Ziereis
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13503–13523, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13503-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13503-2024, 2024
Short summary
Opinion: Challenges and needs of tropospheric chemical mechanism development
Barbara Ervens, Andrew Rickard, Bernard Aumont, William P. L. Carter, Max McGillen, Abdelwahid Mellouki, John Orlando, Bénédicte Picquet-Varrault, Paul Seakins, William R. Stockwell, Luc Vereecken, and Timothy J. Wallington
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13317–13339, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13317-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13317-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Barnes, E. A., Fiore, A. M., and Horowitz, L. W.: Detection of trends in surface ozone in the presence of climate variability, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 121, 6112–6129, https://doi.org/10.1002/2015JD024397, 2016. a
Bateson, T. F. and Schwartz, J.: Selection bias and confounding in case-crossover analyses of environmental time-series data, Epidemiology, 12, 654–661, 2001. a
Chang, K.-L., Cooper, O. R., Gaudel, A., Petropavlovskikh, I., and Thouret, V.: Statistical regularization for trend detection: an integrated approach for detecting long-term trends from sparse tropospheric ozone profiles, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 9915–9938, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-9915-2020, 2020. a, b, c
Chang, K.-L., Schultz, M. G., Lan, X., McClure-Begley, A., Petropavlovskikh, I., Xu, X., and Ziemke, J. R.: Trend detection of atmospheric time series: Incorporating appropriate uncertainty estimates and handling extreme events, Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene, 9, 00035, https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.2021.00035, 2021. a, b, c, d, e, f
Chang, K.-L., Cooper, O. R., Gaudel, A., Allaart, M., Ancellet, G., Clark, H., Godin-Beekmann, S., Leblanc, T., Van Malderen, R., Nédélec, P., Petropavlovskikh, I., Steinbrecht, W., Stübi, R., Tarasick, D. W., and Torres, C.: Impact of the COVID-19 economic downturn on tropospheric ozone trends: an uncertainty weighted data synthesis for quantifying regional anomalies above western North America and Europe, AGU Advances, 3, e2021AV000542, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021AV000542, 2022. a, b, c
Download
Short summary
A great majority of observational trend studies of free tropospheric ozone use sparsely sampled ozonesonde and aircraft measurements as reference data sets. A ubiquitous assumption is that trends are accurate and reliable so long as long-term records are available. We show that sampling bias due to sparse samples can persistently reduce the trend accuracy, and we highlight the importance of maintaining adequate frequency and continuity of observations.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint