Surface ozone exposures measured at clean locations around the world

For assessing the effects of air pollution on vegetation, some researchers have used control chambers as the basis of comparison between crops and trees grown in contemporary polluted rural locations and those grown in a clean environment. There has been some concern whether the arbitrary ozone level of 0.025 ppm and below, often used in charcoal-filtration chambers to simulate the natural background concentration of ozone, is appropriate. Because of the many complex and man-made factors that influence ozone levels, it is difficult to determine natural background. To identify a range of ozone exposures that occur at 'clean' sites, we have calculated ozone exposures observed at a number of 'clean' monitoring sites located in the United States and Canada. We do not claim that these sites are totally free from human influence, but rather than the ozone concentrations observed at these 'clean' sites may be appropriate for use by vegetation researchers in control chambers as pragmatic and defensible surrogates for natural background. For comparison, we have also calculated ozone exposures observed at four 'clean' remote sites in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and at two remote sites (Whiteface Mountain, NY and Hohenpeissenberg, FRG) that are considered to be more polluted. Exposure indices relevant for describing the relationship between ozone and vegetation effects were applied. For studying the effects of ozone on vegetation, the higher concentrations are of interest. The sigmoidally-weighted index appeared to best separate those sites that experienced frequent high concentration exposures from those that experienced few high concentrations. Although there was a consistent seasonal pattern for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Geophysical Monitoring for Climate Change (GMCC) sites indicating a winter/spring maximum, this was not the case for the other remote sites. Some sites in the continental United States and southern Canada experienced ozone exposures in the range between those values experienced at the South Pole and Mauna Loa NOAA GMCC sites. The 7-month average of the daily 7 h average ozone concentration at 'clean' sites located in the continental United States and southern Canada ranged from 0.028 to 0.050 ppm. Our analysis indicates that seasonal 7 h average values of 0.025 ppm and below, used by some vegetation researchers as a reference point, may be too low and that estimates of crop losses and tree damage in many locations may have been too high. Our analysis indicates that a more appropriate reference point in North America might be between 0.030 and 0.045 ppm. We have observed that the subtle effects of changing distribution patterns of hourly average ozone concentrations may be obscured with the use of exposure indices such as the monthly average. Future assessments of the effects associated with ground-level ozone should involve the use of exposure indices sensitive to changes in the distribution patterns of hourly average ozone concentrations.