Improving our Understanding of Tropospheric Ozone: Surveying the last decade (2014-2024) of TOLNet observations

This work highlights specific examples of TOLNet ozone lidar data used to better understand the chemical and dynamical evolution of ozone transport throughout multiple urban centers – with highlights from 2014-2024.

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 O₃ 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 leverage 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. Charter lidar systems are affiliated with NASA GSFC, NASA LaRC, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSL), and the University of Alabama, Huntsville. Routine profiling at Hampton University and City College of New York are also in the process of being collected. 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.