Final Report for the

OTAG Air Quality Analysis Workgroup

 

VOLUME II: SUMMARY AND INTEGRATION OF RESULTS

 

Background

 During the summer months, high ground-level ozone concentrations are observed within and downwind of many of the large urban areas in the eastern US. Peak hourly average concentrations exceed the current National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone of 0.12 ppm and peak 8-hour average concentrations rise above the recently proposed revised ozone NAAQS level of 0.08 ppm. Figure 1 shows nonattainment areas with respect to the current 1-hour NAAQS; Figure 2 shows those areas with design values in excess of the proposed 8-hour standard. A significant feature of ozone concentrations in the East is that, in contrast to other parts of the country, ozone concentrations well in excess of the 30 - 40 ppb tropospheric background level are observed throughout most of the eastern U.S., including locations outside of the major urban nonattainment areas. As a result of these large-scale elevated ozone events and the proximity of nonattainment areas to one another, many states have found that NAAQS attainment cannot be achieved with any reasonable level of local emission control measures and therefore that a regional, multi-state emission control strategy is necessary. The Ozone Transport Assessment Group (OTAG) was formed to deal with this issue.

Figure 1. Areas not in attainment of the current 1-hour 0.12 ppm air quality standard for ozone.

 

 

Figure 2. Areas not in attainment of the proposed 8-hour 0.08 ppm air quality standard for ozone.



An integrated summary of AQAWG analysis results as they pertain to these six key areas is provided In the following sections. This is followed by a discussion of recommendations for future analyses. Summaries of each individual analysis are provided in the final section of this volume.

 

 

Table 1. Technical analyses conducted under the auspices of the Air Quality Analysis Workgroup.

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Project
 

 

 

 

Written

Report

Available?
 

 

 

 

 

WWW

Document?
 

Spectral Decomposition of O3 time Series (Rao et al, 1996)

 

Y
 

Y
 

Trajectory Residence Time Analysis (Wishinski and Poirot, 1996; Poirot and Wishinski, 1996)

 

Y
 

Y
 

Source Regions of Influence (Schichtel and Husar, 1996; Schichtel, 1997)

 

Y
 

Y
 

Source Apportionment Model Results (Morris, 1997)

 

Y
 

---
 

Transport impact distance analysis (Rao, 1996)

 

N
 

---
 

Ozone Pattern Analysis (Husar, 1996; Falk and Husar, 1996; Husar, 1997; Poirot, 1997)

 

Y
 

Y
 

Model/Measure comparisons at nine regional sites (Hartsell and Edgerton, 1996)

 

Y
 

Y
 

Site Selection for Model Evaluation (Poirot, 1996)

 

Y
 

Y
 

Observed/Predicted isoprene comparison (Edgerton, 1996)

 

N
 

---
 

Nashville/Middle TN Ozone Study (Meagher, 1996; Imhoff, 1996; TVA, 1996)

 

Y
 

---
 

Tracer Relationships at SOS-SCION Sites (Edgerton and Hartsell, 1996)

 

Y
 

---
 

Intra-Annual and High Frequency Variations at SOS-SCION sites (Vukovich, 1996)

 

Y
 

---
 

Representativeness of 1995 Ozone Season (Chinkin et al, 1996)

 

Y
 

---
 

Review of Ozone Trend Studies (Morris, 1996)

 

Y
 

---
 

Tracer relationships at a site in South-Central PA (Edgerton, 1996)

 

Y
 

Y
 

Analysis of low-level jets using NARSTO Northeast data (Korc et al., 1997)

 

N
 

---

 

 

1. A "Y" in this column indicates related documentation is available on the AQAWG world wide web page at the following URL: http://capita.wustl.edu/OTAG/

Submit your comments, feedback, questions, and ideas pertaining this page. Your input will be automatically added to the existing annotations. In order to add a new comment, you must be registered with the OTAG/AQA Peoples Page.