Reconstructing high-quality ground-level ozone records from 1980 to 2012 in central and eastern China

Surface ozone (O₃) substantially and adversely impacts public health and ecosystems. Despite China's air quality improvements, pre-2013 ozone records in central-eastern China (CEC) remain scarce. To address this temporal gap, we constructed a 0.5° resolution daily maximum 8-h average (MDA8) ozone concentration dataset spanning 1980-2012 by employing a light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM, LGBM) model based on multisource datasets. Tenfold cross-validation (2013-2023) demonstrated robust spatiotemporal reconstruction capability, with 88% of grids exhibiting correlation coefficients (R²) > 0.8 versus observations (42% exceeding 0.9) and root mean square errors (RMSE) of 7.5-7.9 μg⋅m^-3. The reconstructed climatology revealed a regional mean of 87.6 μg⋅m^-3 with a north-south gradient and significant annual increase (0.14 μg⋅m^-3⋅yr^-1, p < 0.01). μg⋅m^-3 Mechanistic attribution identified synergistic forcing from global warming (0.32 °C decade^-1), industrial expansion, and urbanization-induced emission growth as primary drivers of long-term ozone elevation. The LightGBM-reconstructed dataset exhibits exceptional stability (interannual variability < 5%), providing critical baseline data for quantifying multidecadal ozone pollution-climate interactions and informing regional air quality management strategies.