Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 114, Issue 10, Pages 2491-2496Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1610708114
Keywords
ozone; seasonal forecast; teleconnection; sea surface temperature
Categories
Funding
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Air Quality Applied Sciences Team
- NASA Modeling, Analysis, and Prediction Grant [NNX13AO08G]
- NIH [R21ES022585]
- USEPA Grant [RD-83587201]
- NASA [467680, NNX13AO08G] Funding Source: Federal RePORTER
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We develop a statistical model to predict June-July-August (JJA) daily maximum 8-h average (MDA8) ozone concentrations in the eastern United States based on large-scale climate patterns during the previous spring. We find that anomalously high JJA ozone in the East is correlated with these springtime patterns: warm tropical Atlantic and cold northeast Pacific sea surface temperatures (SSTs), as well as positive sea level pressure (SLP) anomalies over Hawaii and negative SLP anomalies over the Atlantic and North America. We then develop a linear regression model to predict JJA MDA8 ozone from 1980 to 2013, using the identified SST and SLP patterns from the previous spring. The model explains similar to 45% of the variability in JJA MDA8 ozone concentrations and similar to 30% variability in the number of JJA ozone episodes (> 70 ppbv) when averaged over the eastern United States. This seasonal predictability results from large-scale ocean-atmosphere interactions. Warm tropical Atlantic SSTs can trigger diabatic heating in the atmosphere and influence the extratropical climate through stationary wave propagation, leading to greater subsidence, less precipitation, and higher temperatures in the East, which increases surface ozone concentrations there. Cooler SSTs in the northeast Pacific are also associated with more summertime heatwaves and high ozone in the East. On average, models participating in the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project fail to capture the influence of this ocean-atmosphere interaction on temperatures in the eastern United States, implying that such models would have difficulty simulating the interannual variability of surface ozone in this region.
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