Drivers of change in peak-season surface  ozone concentrations and impacts on human  health over the historical period (1850–2014)

Turnock, Steven T.; Akritidis, Dimitris; Horowitz, Larry; Mertens, Mariano; Pozzer, Andrea; Reddington, Carly L.; Wang, Hantao; Zhou, Putian; O'Connor, Fiona

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7111-2025

Articles | Volume 25, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7111-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report Phase II (TOAR-II) Community...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7111-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 25, issue 13

Research article

|

10 Jul 2025

Research article |

| 10 Jul 2025

Drivers of change in peak-season surface ozone concentrations and impacts on human health over the historical period (1850–2014)

Steven T. Turnock, Dimitris Akritidis, Larry Horowitz, Mariano Mertens, Andrea Pozzer, Carly L. Reddington, Hantao Wang, Putian Zhou, and Fiona O'Connor

Data sets

Dataset for Drivers of change in Peak Season Surface Ozone Concentrations and Impacts on Human Health over the Historical Period (1850-2014) Steven Turnock et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13385648

NOAA-GFDL GFDL-ESM4 model output prepared for CMIP6 AerChemMIP Larry W. Horowitz et al. https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.1404

EC-Earth-Consortium EC-Earth3-AerChem model output prepared for CMIP6 AerChemMIP EC-Earth Consortium https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.699

MOHC UKESM1.0-LL model output prepared for CMIP6 AerChemMIP Fiona O'Connor https://doi.org/10.22033/ESGF/CMIP6.1561

Short summary

We assess the drivers behind changes in peak-season surface ozone concentrations and risks to human health between 1850 and 2014. Substantial increases in surface ozone have occurred over this period, resulting in an increased risk to human health, driven mainly by increases in anthropogenic NO_x emissions and global CH₄ concentrations. Fixing anthropogenic NO_x emissions at 1850 values in the near-present-day period can eliminate the risk to human health associated with exposure to surface ozone.