Ground-level ozone | EPFL Graph Search

Ground-level ozone (O3), also known as surface-level ozone and tropospheric ozone, is a trace gas in the troposphere (the lowest level of the Earth's atmosphere), with an average concentration of 20–30 parts per billion by volume (ppbv), with close to 100 ppbv in polluted areas. Ozone is also an important constituent of the stratosphere, where the ozone layer (2 to 8 parts per million ozone) exists which is located between 10 and 50 kilometers above the Earth's surface. The troposphere extends from the ground up to a variable height of approximately 14 kilometers above sea level. Ozone is least concentrated in the ground layer (or planetary boundary layer) of the troposphere. Ground-level or tropospheric ozone is created by chemical reactions between NOx gases (oxides of nitrogen produced by combustion) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The combination of these chemicals in the presence of sunlight form ozone. Its concentration increases as height above sea level increases, with

Development of the Jungfraujoch UV DIAL Lidar to Observe the Vertical Ozone Distribution in the Context of Stratosphere Troposphere Exchange and Long Range Transport

Marcel Bartlome

Tropospheric ozone is a climate relevant greenhouse gas, as well as an atmospheric pollutant. Its abundance in the troposphere is mainly governed by the influx of stratospheric air masses and the photochemical production due to anthropogenic and biogenic ozone precursors. Precise model simulations and measurements are needed to assess the exact impact of these sources onto the total tropospheric ozone content. In the latter case, vertical tropospheric ozone profiles are commonly obtained from in-situ balloon-borne soundings. These routine observations are performed with a maximum frequency of several measurements per week. Therefore, they are not suited to resolve the rather fast changes in the tropospheric ozone concentration. However, accurate vertical ozone profiles with temporal and spatial resolutions suitable for studying those changes have been produced for decades using remote sensing by means of the ozone UV differential absorption lidar (DIAL) technique. The main goals of this thesis aimed to address some of the unresolved problems of the ozone origin and evolution in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere and were: to develop an UV DIAL for the observation of the vertical ozone distribution in the free troposphere and at the tropopause region. to perform experimental measurements of vertical ozone profiles in the free troposphere and the tropopause in order to assess the ability of the ozone UV DIAL to observe fast variations in vertical ozone distribution caused by stratosphere-troposphere exchange (STE), long range transport, and advection from the boundary layer. to assess the feasibility of systematic ozone profile retrieval by the ozone UV DIAL technique from the High Altitude Research Station Jungfraujoch (HARSJ, 3580 m ASL, 7°59'2''E, 46°32'53''N). The HARSJ was chosen for the experiment because of its location, which allows ozone UV DIAL measurements of the tropopause region without perturbation of the lower troposphere. Furthermore, previous atmospheric studies have shown that because of the station's location, the upper tropospheric data taken at the HARSJ can be regarded as representative for central and western Europe. During the first two and a half years of the thesis project the ozone UV DIAL was designed and built. The ozone UV DIAL transmitter is based on a commercial, fourth harmonic Nd:YAG laser. The on- (284 nm) and off- (304 nm) ozone UV DIAL wavelengths are produced by stimulated Raman scattering in high-pressure nitrogen. The receiver uses the existing astronomical Cassegrain telescope (76 cm in diameter) at the HARSJ. Spectral separation of the backscattered ozone UV DIAL wavelengths is carried out by a polychromator based on an concave imaging diffraction grating. The entire ozone UV DIAL detection unit is integrated into the existing long-range multi-wavelength polychromator box optically coupled at the Cassegrain telescope's rear end. With the current design, the ozone UV DIAL system provides hourly averaged ozone profiles reaching from 6 km to 12 km ASL with a vertical resolution better than 400 m at 6 km ASL and 1000 m at 12 km ASL. The relative statistical error of the profiles is 10% at 12 km ASL. The experimental measurements started in the spring of 2008 but were interrupted several times because of serious laser failures. As a first step of the experiment, the ozone UV DIAL profiles were compared to balloon borne ozone profiles taken by electrochemical concentration cell (ECC) sondes. The sondes were launched by the Swiss Meteorological Institute – Payerne (SMI, 46°49'N, 6°56'E, 491 m ASL) situated 80 km in northwestern direction of the HARSJ. The ozone UV DIAL and the sonde measurements were taken quasi simultaneously. The relative differences between the ozone UV DIAL and the sonde profiles were found to be below ±25% in a horizontally homogeneous atmosphere. The intercomparison has shown that the ozone UV DIAL is capable to accurately reproduce the vertical ozone distribution. Intercomparison with vertical ozone profiles taken in the vicinity of the HARSJ by an airplane-borne UV-photometer confirmed the performance of the ozone UV DIAL. Time series with duration of up to 21 hours were taken in order to study the time evolution of tropospheric events characterized by elevated ozone concentrations. As a result of these measurements three events, demonstrating different processes have been identified. In the first case an air layer with elevated ozone concentration was observed in the altitude range between 6 and 7 km ASL. The lower than 10% relative humidity and the time evolution of this layer allowed to determine its stratospheric origin. The observations are in a good agreement with the EURopean Air Pollution Dispersion (EURAD) model. The model predictions also agree with the elevated ozone concentration measured by the UV-photometer of the National Air Pollution Monitoring Network (NABEL) operated at the HARSJ. The evolution of an ozone-enriched layer in the tropopause region was followed for 21 hours during the second case study. The time evolution, the ECC data, and the EURAD model predictions suggest the possibility of a short filamentation process developing at the tropopause region. The measurements of the third event were made according to a prediction of STE forecasted by a dynamical model developed at the ETHZ. A short living enhancement of the ozone concentration has been observed at an altitude of about 9.5 km ASL. There are two possible explanations for this event. The first one could be a short living reversible STE event. A second explanation is a possible long-range transport of ozone and ozone precursor rich air from the forest fires in the Athens region suggested by the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model (HYSPLIT) backward trajectories. However, the available information does not allow to make a definite conclusion. The ozone UV DIAL has been built successfully and has shown its ability to observe fast variation in vertical ozone distribution with high accuracy and precision. In combination with additional water vapor and temperature lidar observations and supported by model forecasting, this system could become a powerful tool for the improving of the understanding of upper troposphere and lower stratosphere ozone related processes. However, to allow future systematic observations the ozone UV DIAL will need an essential upgrade to resolve the problems related to the long preparation time, and the limited by technical reasons time of observation.

EPFL2010

Ozone and water vapor measurements by Raman lidar in the planetary boundary layer

The temporal and spatial retrieve of ozone (O3) concentration and water vapor (H2O) mixing ratio in the troposphere is of essential interest. Contrary to the stratospheric case, the tropospheric ozone can have a harmful impact, with its toxic effect, on humans and vegetation, accelerating the degradation of the minerals and participating in the green-house problem. Concerning the water vapor, knowledge of its highly variable concentration is essential to both the chemistry of the troposphere (O(1D) + H2O —> 2 OH) where it participates, among others, in the generation of the hydroxyl radical (OH) and to the meteorology. Water vapor is the dominant green-house gas, it plays an important role in the atmospheric chemistry. The conversion and transport of water in the atmosphere is the essential point in the earth's radiation budget. Due to the complexity and the non-linearity of the air pollution system including emissions, chemistry, thermal radiation, transport and deposition, pollution abatement strategies can only be designed rightly by the use of a three-dimensional mesoscale Eulerian photochemical transport model. To check such models, measurement campaigns are undertaken, in which many physical (wind, temperature, H2O, etc.) and chemical parameters (emissions and imissions) are measured at different parts of the atmosphere. LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging), which is a real-time method for measuring air pollutants in situ, is one of the best tools to make 3-D measurements of gases concentrations like O3, H2O and others. Contrary to the ground based measurements that are highly sensitive to the very local conditions, lidar sensitivity and resolution in space and time is optimal to obtain measurements and to compare or give some input data for the models. During the last thirty years, (elastic backscatter) Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) has been established as a convenient tool for the monitoring of the three dimensional real time concentrations of air pollutants [Measures, 1992], [Schoulepnikoff et al., 1998]. But the DIAL apparatus has shown limitations: — the operation in layers with high aerosol loading like in the Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) where they are highly variable — the simultaneous detection of several atmospheric components or pollutants is impossible [Bösenberg, 1996] — the detection at short range is difficult due to the high dynamics. Furthermore, due to its spectrum and the strong influence from other elements, the water vapor can not be easily measured in the UV with classical DIAL systems. The goal of this work was to develop a method to simultaneously measure the ozone absolute concentration and the water vapor mixing ratio in the PBL. Experiments with Nd : YAG and KrF lasers were made and utilization of both analog and photon counting techniques, increasing the dynamic range, were investigated. To retrieve the ozone concentration profile, we take advantage of the simultaneous spontaneous Raman backscattering on the molecules of nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2) that have different ozone absorption cross-sections. Thus with a modified DIAL technique, the ozone concentration can be measured without most of the interference from poorly known backscatter by particles. Water vapor mixing ratio profile can also be obtained with a set of three Raman backscattered signals, simultaneously detected, from the molecules of H2O, N2 and O2. The main advantage of this Raman system is its essential independence to the wavelength dependent backscatter problems as induced by aerosols, and the fact that the N2 and O2 concentrations are well known as well as the Raman cross-sections of interest. Although the Raman cross-sections are two or three orders of magnitude lower than the elastic backscattering cross-sections, they are compensated by the proportionally much higher concentrations of O2, N2 and H2O compared to trace gases like O3. The development of the Raman — DIAL method for atmospheric measurements in the PBL presents several challenges. One is the development of highly-sensitive lidar systems, in particular the optical receiver, the spectrometer and the signal acquisition for the Raman part of the Raman-DIAL system. Also the data processing procedure for simultaneous evaluation of the ozone and the water vapor profiles. Both of these challenges present a number of issues, theoretical and practical, that are investigated in the frame of this work.

EPFL2001

Une première mesure lidar combinée d'ozone et de vent, à partir d'une instrumentation et d'une méthodologie coup par coup

During these last decades, air pollution has drawn the attention of scientists because of the deterioration of the human environment that it has caused. Unfortunately, the study of this dynamic phenomenon is very complex and requires the use of models that compute the evolution of the physico-chemical parameters of the atmosphere. Moreover, the predictions of the numerical simulations have to be validated by range- and time-resolved measurements, carried out continuously up to the top of the planetary boundary layer. Only the optical radar or lidar satisfies these specifications: for this reason the Laboratory for Air and Soil Pollution (LPAS) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) has developed such a system in order to provide the modellers with information complementary to that given by the ground measurements. This instrument, after mounting on a mobile platform, has determined the concentration of the key molecule ozone during several field campaigns, demonstrating its reliability and precision. Moreover, the EPFL system is a shot per shot lidar, able to record each detected signal and not only its average in a time interval. This feature is innovative to lidar determinations of tropospheric ozone and allows one to measure accurately the statistical error, to correct for the effect of systematic biases and to observe the dynamic behaviour of the atmosphere: the measurement of the statistical error has been used to build a model of the signal and of its noise, useful in the design of future lidar systems and for the comparison of the various data processing algorithms. the correction of the bias caused by the artificial deformation of the statistical distribution of the signal at long distance has led to a considerable increase of the range of the retrieved ozone profiles, the observation of the dynamic behaviour of the atmosphere has resulted in the first simultaneous measurement of a pollutant concentration and of the wind velocity with the same data set recorded by a lidar.

EPFL1996