Bay breeze influence on surface ozone at Edgewood, MD during July 2011

Surface ozone (O3) was analyzed to investigate the role of the bay breeze on air quality at two locations in Edgewood, Maryland (lat: 39.4°, lon: −76.3°) for the month of July 2011. Measurements were taken as part of the first year of NASA’s “Deriving Information on Surface Conditions from Column and Vertically Resolved Observations Relevant to Air Quality” (DISCOVER-AQ) Earth Venture campaign and as part of NASA’s Geostationary for Coastal and Air Pollution Events Chesapeake Bay Oceanographic campaign with DISCOVER-AQ (Geo-CAPE CBODAQ). Geo-CAPE CBODAQ complements DISCOVER-AQ by providing ship-based observations over the Chesapeake Bay. A major goal of DISCOVER-AQ is determining the relative roles of sources, photochemistry and local meteorology during air quality events in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. Surface characteristics, transport and vertical structures of O3 during bay breezes were identified using in-situ surface, balloon and aircraft data, along with remote sensing equipment. Localized late day peaks in O3 were observed during bay breeze days, maximizing an average of 3 h later R. M. Stauffer (*) : A. M. Thompson : D. K. Martins Department of Meteorology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA e-mail: rms5539@psu.edu R. D. Clark Department of Earth Sciences, Millersville University, Millersville, PA 17551, USA D. L. Goldberg : R. R. Dickerson : J. W. Stehr Department of Atmospheric and Ocean Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA C. P. Loughner : M. A. Tzortziou Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA C. P. Loughner : M. A. Tzortziou NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA R. Delgado Joint Center of Earth Systems Technology, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA