Characterizing Summer 2023 Ozone Transport at Multiple Urban Centers with Coordinated Ozone Profiling by the Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet)

There continues to be a need for tropospheric ozone observations to better understand processes relevant to air quality and pollution transport. To address fundamental science and policy questions relating to ozone, ground-based remote sensing efforts from ozone lidar continue to be a high priority for the regulatory and scientific community. To ensure support of these efforts (especially with current and future geostationary satellites coming online) and leveraging the existing framework of knowledge within the larger atmospheric community, an interagency network initiated by NASA, NOAA, and EPA in 2011 began, known as the Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet)¹. The network comprises lidar systems from NASA GSFC, NASA LaRC, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSL), the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and City College of New York. An international collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) has also been established, as well as a modeling component at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) and data archiving administered at NASA LaRC.

This work highlights specific examples of TOLNet ozone lidar data used to better understand the chemical and dynamical evolution of ozone transport forecasted throughout multiple urban centers in Summer 2023, including New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Case studies, focused on high ozone events occurring between June-August 2023 include comparisons between lidars at multiple sites, ozonesondes, and available aircraft data.