Diurnal hourly near-surface ozone concentration derived from geostationary satellite in China

Near-surface O₃ is a harmful atmospheric pollutant and a key component of urban photochemical pollution. The availability of satellite ozone concentration products is predominantly restricted to daytime, resulting in a lack of understanding of nighttime ozone pollution (e.g. nocturnal ozone enhancement events). This research leverages 5-km bright temperatures derived from Advanced Himawari Images (AHI) on the Himawari-8 satellite, in conjunction with auxiliary data, to estimate 24-h near-surface O₃ concentrations in China at a resolution of 5 km for 2020. The model achieves an average 5-fold cross-validation R² of 0.92. Comparative analysis with on-site observations reveals that the model has low relative errors between 8:00 and 21:00 LT. The estimated O₃ maps depict a consistent 24-h variation pattern, characterized by high and most fluctuating concentrations during the daytime, reaching a peak around 16:00 LT, which is primarily due to the increased photochemical reactions and the O₃ accumulation in the mid-afternoon. In the daytime of summer, high surface ozone concentrations are mainly contributed by June. The elevated levels of O₃ are predominantly found in central China, particularly in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and Inner Mongolia. It can also be seen that although the highest average daytime surface O₃ concentration occurs in summer, the highest nighttime concentration is observed in spring, which may be attributed to the frequent occurrence of horizontal transport and vertical mixing of O₃. This study holds promise in providing comprehensive round-the-clock surface O₃ data across China, thereby enhancing our understanding of diurnal ground-level O₃ variations.