A primary sink for ozone, an air pollutant and greenhouse gas in the troposphere, is removal at Earth’s surface (called dry deposition) which occurs through several different processes. A new unprecedented synthesis funded by CPO’s AC4 Program, finds that most of these processes can be fairly well described theoretically, but scientists don’t know the relative importance of each process. Better understanding is essential for improved modeling and prediction of air pollution, ecosystem health, and climate. The new research, accepted for publication in Reviews of Geophysics, synthesizes ozone deposition processes, measurements, and modeling as well as recommendations to address understanding gaps. The authors suggest that establishing multi-year measurements of ozone dry deposition at a limited set of sites around the world, coordinating the measurements with laboratory and field experiments, and integrating the measurements and experiments with modeling studies could advance progress.
New research provides unprecedented synthesis of how ozone is removed at Earth’s surface
