Two Decades of Changes in Summertime Ozone Production in California's South Coast Air Basin

Tropospheric ozone (O₃) continues to be a threat to human health and agricultural productivity. While O₃ control is challenging, tracking underlying formation mechanisms provides insights for regulatory directions. Here, we describe a comprehensive analysis of the effects of changing emissions on O₃ formation mechanisms with observational evidence. We present a new approach that provides a quantitative metric for the ozone production rate (OPR) and its sensitivity to precursor levels by interpreting two decades of in situ observations of the six criteria air pollutants(2001-2018). Applying to the South Coast Air Basin (SoCAB), California, we show that by 2016-2018, the basin was at the transition region between nitrogen oxide (NO)-limited and volatile organic compound (VOC)-limited chemical regimes. Assuming future weather conditions are similar to 2016-2018, we predict that NO-focused reduction is required to reduce the number of summer days the SoCAB is in violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (70 ppbv) for O₃. Roughly, ∼40% (∼60%) NO reductions are required to reduce the OPR by ∼1.8 ppb/h (∼3.3 ppb/h). This change would reduce the number of violation days from 28 to 20% (10%) in a year, mostly in summertime. Concurrent VOC reductions which reduce the production rate of HO radicals would also be beneficial.