OZONE SOURCES AND TRANSPORT IN THE NORTHEASTERN UNITED-STATES

In order to devise oxidant control strategies which accommodate pollutant transport, it will be necessary to quantify oxidant transport in terms of concentration, dimensions of transported air masses, and the distance of transport under various meteorological conditions. These topics are discussed in this paper in terms of data collected in southern New England during the 1975 Northeast Oxidant Transport Study. Several potential sources of surface-level ozone and their contributions to the overall ozone burden are discussed. The sources include natural or “background” ozone, ozone associated with high-pressure systems (regional ozone), ozone formed from local anthropogenic emissions, and ozone generated in urban plumes downwind of cities. Ozone associated with high-pressure systems tends to blanket large regions of the country and, when superimposed on the background and locally generated ozone, can result in concentrations which exceed the federal oxidant standard. Ozone formed in urban plumes is superimposed on ozone from other sources and forms “hot spots” in the regional blanket of ozone. Emphasis in this paper is placed on characterization of ozone plumes from urban areas. © 1979, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.