Effects of changes in climate and emissions on emission controls for regional ozone

Future regional air quality will depend on several factors, though climatic conditions and emissions of ozone and particulate matter precursors will be key. Air quality management strategies thus need to consider such factors. The focus of this work is on emission controls for ozone and how changes in climate and emissions will affect their effectiveness. This is found by quantifying the sensitivity of ozone concentrations to emissions. This modeling study is conducted for the continental U.S. domain using the MODELS-3 system. A direct decoupled method (DDM) is utilized for sensitivity calculation. A two-week summertime episode is chosen for base year 2001 and future year 2050 with modified climate and projected emissions. Results from the study are given and discussed.