Articles | Volume 25, issue 13
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7111-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-7111-2025
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

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Cited articles

Akritidis, D., Pozzer, A., Flemming, J., Inness, A., and Zanis, P.: A Global Climatology of Tropopause Folds in CAMS and MERRA-2 Reanalyses, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 126, e2020JD034115, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD034115, 2021. a
Akritidis, D., Bacer, S., Zanis, P., Georgoulias, A. K., Chowdhury, S., Horowitz, L. W., Naik, V., O'Connor, F. M., Keeble, J., Sager, P. L., van Noije, T., Zhou, P., Turnock, S., West, J. J., Lelieveld, J., and Pozzer, A.: Strong increase in mortality attributable to ozone pollution under a climate change and demographic scenario, Environ. Res. Lett., 19, 024041, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad2162, 2024. a, b
Anenberg, S. C., Horowitz, L. W., Tong, D. Q., and West, J. J.: An Estimate of the Global Burden of Anthropogenic Ozone and Fine Particulate Matter on Premature Human Mortality Using Atmospheric Modeling, Environ. Healt Perspect., 118, 1189–1195, https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.0901220, 2010. a
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Archibald, A. T., O'Connor, F. M., Abraham, N. L., Archer-Nicholls, S., Chipperfield, M. P., Dalvi, M., Folberth, G. A., Dennison, F., Dhomse, S. S., Griffiths, P. T., Hardacre, C., Hewitt, A. J., Hill, R. S., Johnson, C. E., Keeble, J., Köhler, M. O., Morgenstern, O., Mulcahy, J. P., Ordóñez, C., Pope, R. J., Rumbold, S. T., Russo, M. R., Savage, N. H., Sellar, A., Stringer, M., Turnock, S. T., Wild, O., and Zeng, G.: Description and evaluation of the UKCA stratosphere–troposphere chemistry scheme (StratTrop vn 1.0) implemented in UKESM1, Geosci. Model Dev., 13, 1223–1266, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-13-1223-2020, 2020b. a, b
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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 NOx emissions and global CH4 concentrations. Fixing anthropogenic NOx emissions at 1850 values in the near-present-day period can eliminate the risk to human health associated with exposure to surface ozone.
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