East China plains: a "basin" of ozone pollution

Economic growth and associated pollution emissions in China are concentrated over three connected plains to the east In this work, we analyze an episode of highly elevated ozone over East China on June 9-14, 2004, using a 3-D chemical transport model. During this episode, the East China plains were under a high-pressure system, which suppressed the ventilation of pollutants from the boundary layer. Simulated ozone concentrations over a major fraction of East China reached high levels, all the way down to the Pearl River Delta region in the southern border. The convergence of pollutant emissions and population over the vast stretch of the geographically flat plains of East China makes the region susceptible to high-ozone exposure. During this episode, the high-03 region extended over an area >1 million km2, which hosts a population of >800 million people. Model results indicate that controlling anthropogenic NOx emissions effectively reduces the area with high-ozone exposure.