The effects of forest canopy shading and turbulence on boundary layer ozone

P. A. Makar (), R. M. Staebler, A. Akingunola, J. Zhang, C. McLinden, S. K. Kharol, B. Pabla, P. Cheung and Q. Zheng
Additional contact information
P. A. Makar: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
R. M. Staebler: Air Quality Processes Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
A. Akingunola: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
J. Zhang: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
C. McLinden: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
S. K. Kharol: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
B. Pabla: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
P. Cheung: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada
Q. Zheng: Air Quality Modelling and Integration Research Unit, Atmospheric Science and Technology Directorate, Environment and Climate Change Canada

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract The chemistry of the Earth’s atmosphere close to the surface is known to be strongly influenced by vegetation. However, two critical aspects of the forest environment have been neglected in the description of the large-scale influence of forests on air pollution: the reduction of photolysis reaction rates and the modification of vertical transport due to the presence of foliage. Here we show that foliage shading and foliage-modified vertical diffusion have a profound influence on atmospheric chemistry, both at the Earth’s surface and extending throughout the atmospheric boundary layer. The absence of these processes in three-dimensional models may account for 59–72% of the positive bias in North American surface ozone forecasts, and up to 97% of the bias in forested regions within the continent. These processes are shown to have similar or greater influence on surface ozone levels as climate change and current emissions policy scenario simulations.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15243 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms15243

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15243

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().