Airborne and ground-based lidar observations of spatiotemporal variability of mixing-layer-height and ozone pollution in New York City area

Details

• Journal Title:
  Atmospheric Environment
• Personal Author:
  Wu, Yonghua ; Nehrir, Amin ; Gronoff, Guillaume ; Huang, Jianping ; Collins, James ; Owoeye, Kolawole ; Ely, Thomas ; Moshary, Fred
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NWS (National Weather Service) ; OMD (Office of Modeling and Development) ; CESSRST (Cooperative Science Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies)
• Description:
  Ozone (O3) exceedances of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) frequently occur during summer in New York City (NYC) and downwind coastal areas of Long Island Sound (LIS), driven by complex interactions among urban emissions, regional transport, land-sea breezes, and urban heat island effects. This study combines airborne, shipborne, and ground-based observations to examine spatiotemporal variations in mixing-layer height (MLH) and O3, using data from NASA's airborne lidar High Altitude Lidar Observatory (HALO), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley's ozone lidar, a shipborne ceilometer, CCNY ground-based aerosol lidar, coherent Doppler wind lidar, and ground in situ samplers during the Long Island Sound Tropospheric Ozone Study (LISTOS). Compared with the NYC urban area, near-surface O3 at western and eastern LIS coastal sites was consistently higher, exceeding the NAAQS on August 28-29, 2018 despite low-level nitrogen dioxide (NO2). During morning-to-noon planetary boundary layer (PBL) growth, MLH reached 1.6-1.8 km over NYC but remained lower (0.8-1.0 km) over LIS and New Jersey suburbs. Comparisons of ground lidar and ceilometer data revealed a 1-2-h lag in MLH growth over coastal-marine areas relative to the NYC urban core, due to urban heat island effects (UHI). These results indicate that coastal O3 exceedances are linked to shallow MLH, urban plume transport, and sea-breeze circulations. Observations were used to evaluate NOAA North American Mesoscale (NAM)- EPA Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model forecasts of MLH and surface O3. While model performed well at the urban site, a timing bias in coastal peak O3 was identified, highlighting challenges in predicting coastal air quality.
• Keywords:
  • Ozone exceedance
  • Planetary boundary layer (PBL)
  • Lidar
  • PBL dynamics
  • Lidar
  • Land-sea breezes
• Source:
  Atmospheric Environment 370 (2026) 121832
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2026.121832
• Format:
  PDF
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA22SEC4810016
• Place as Subject:
  New York (N.Y.) ; Long Island Sound (N.Y. and Conn.)
• Rights Information:
  Accepted Manuscript
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/74454/noaa_74454_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 4.50 MB]
• Collection(s):
  National Weather Service (NWS) ; NOAA Cooperative Science Centers
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:36364f35b6a2eebc3b1006eda6e624bf65fe586738f04ba0296fce3f5f324cfa86b63cd102048103fe490ab2e20342f88effd67ffca14a29e252ae9c4d0e55e3