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 heat waves (1990–2023)
Kai-Lan Chang, Brian C. McDonald, Colin Harkins, and Owen R. Cooper
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5101–5132, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5101-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5101-2025, 2025
Short summary
Global Source-Receptor-Relationship Database for Integrated Tropospheric Ozone Observations from Multiplatform Datasets in Western North America during 1994–2021
Yu Yan Cui, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Matthew S. Johnson, Kai-Lan Chang, Emma Yates, Owen R. Cooper, and Laura T. Iraci
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-571,https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2024-571, 2025
Preprint under review for ESSD
Short summary
Ground-based Tropospheric Ozone Measurements: Regional tropospheric ozone column trends from the TOAR-II/ HEGIFTOM homogenized datasets
Roeland Van Malderen, Zhou Zang, Kai-Lan Chang, Robin Björklund, Owen R. Cooper, Jane Liu, Eliane Maillard Barras, Corinne Vigouroux, Irina Petropavlovskikh, Thierry Leblanc, Valérie Thouret, Pawel Wolff, Peter Effertz, Audrey Gaudel, David W. Tarasick, Herman G. J. Smit, Anne M. Thompson, Ryan M. Stauffer, Debra E. Kollonige, Deniz Poyraz, Gérard Ancellet, Marie-Renée De Backer, Matthias M. Frey, James W. Hannigan, José L. Hernandez, Bryan J. Johnson, Nicholas Jones, Rigel Kivi, Emmanuel Mahieu, Isamu Morino, Glen McConville, Katrin Müller, Isao Murata, Justus Notholt, Ankie Piters, Maxime Prignon, Richard Querel, Vincenzo Rizi, Dan Smale, Wolfgang Steinbrecht, Kimberly Strong, and Ralf Sussmann
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3745,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3745, 2025
Short summary
Applications of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Tropospheric Ozone Research
Sebastian H. M. Hickman, Makoto Kelp, Paul T. Griffiths, Kelsey Doerksen, Kazuyuki Miyazaki, Elyse A. Pennington, Gerbrand Koren, Fernando Iglesias-Suarez, Martin G. Schultz, Kai-Lan Chang, Owen R. Cooper, Alexander T. Archibald, Roberto Sommariva, David Carlson, Hantao Wang, J. Jason West, and Zhenze Liu
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3739,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-3739, 2025
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

Related subject area

Subject: Gases | Research Activity: Atmospheric Modelling and Data Analysis | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Chemistry (chemical composition and reactions)
Source contribution to ozone pollution during June 2021 fire events in Arizona: insights from WRF-Chem-tagged O3 and CO
Yafang Guo, Mohammad Amin Mirrezaei, Armin Sorooshian, and Avelino F. Arellano
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5591–5616, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5591-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5591-2025, 2025
Short summary
High-resolution mapping of on-road vehicle emissions with real-time traffic datasets based on big data
Yujia Wang, Hongbin Wang, Bo Zhang, Peng Liu, Xinfeng Wang, Shuchun Si, Likun Xue, Qingzhu Zhang, and Qiao Wang
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5537–5555, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5537-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5537-2025, 2025
Short summary
Sensitivity of climate–chemistry model simulated atmospheric composition to the application of an inverse relationship between NOx emission and lightning flash frequency
Francisco J. Pérez-Invernón, Francisco J. Gordillo-Vázquez, Heidi Huntrieser, Patrick Jöckel, and Eric J. Bucsela
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5557–5575, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5557-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5557-2025, 2025
Short summary
Regional and sectoral contributions of NOx and reactive carbon emission sources to global trends in tropospheric ozone during the 2000–2018 period
Aditya Nalam, Aura Lupaşcu, Tabish Ansari, and Tim Butler
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5287–5311, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5287-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5287-2025, 2025
Short summary
Underappreciated contributions of biogenic volatile organic compounds from urban green spaces to ozone pollution
Haofan Wang, Yuejin Li, Yiming Liu, Xiao Lu, Yang Zhang, Qi Fan, Chong Shen, Senchao Lai, Yan Zhou, Tao Zhang, and Dingli Yue
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 25, 5233–5250, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5233-2025,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-5233-2025, 2025
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.
Share
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint