Implications for ozone control by understanding the survivor bias in observed ozone-volatile organic compounds system

Zhenyu Wang; Zongbo Shi; Feng Wang; Weiqing Liang; Guoliang Shi; Weichao Wang; Da Chen; Danni Liang; Yinchang Feng; Armistead G. Russell

doi:10.1038/s41612-022-00261-7

Implications for ozone control by understanding the survivor bias in observed ozone-volatile organic compounds system

Zhenyu Wang, Zongbo Shi, Feng Wang, Weiqing Liang, Guoliang Shi^*, Weichao Wang, Da Chen, Danni Liang, Yinchang Feng, Armistead G. Russell

^*Corresponding author for this work

Earth and Environmental Sciences

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Abstract

Tropospheric ozone (O₃) affects Earth’s climate and human health. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), major contributors to O₃ formation, are of particular interest. Generally, the measured concentrations of VOCs (M-VOCs) and O₃ show nonlinear or even opposite time serial-trend. We attributed the phenomenon to survivor bias: lack of insight of the photochemically consumed VOCs (C-VOCs) which emitted from sources to ambient and devote to forming O₃, while excessive concern on the measured VOCs (M-VOCs) at observation site. Both observational and model results provide evidence that C-VOCs are the key to O₃ formation. We proposed an improved model to quantify the source contributions of C-VOCs (biogenic emissions, gasoline evaporation, industry, etc.) and their impacts on the formation of O₃, successfully avoiding the misidentification of dominant VOCs sources originated from the survivor bias in observational data. The survivor bias found in this study highlights that focusing of M-VOCs directly is insufficient and demonstrates the necessity of capture the sources of C-VOCs which contribute to O₃ formation.

Original language	English
Article number	39
Number of pages	9
Journal	npj Climate and Atmospheric Science
Volume	5
Issue number	1
Early online date	13 May 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41612-022-00261-7
Publication status	Published - Dec 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (42077191), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (63213072), and the Blue Sky Foundation. This work is a contribution from State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Urban Ambient Air Particulate Matter Pollution Prevention and Control. We would like to thank Dr. Haofei Yu (University of Central Florida) for editing and linguistic assistance.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Global and Planetary Change
Environmental Chemistry
Atmospheric Science

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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WangZ2022ImplicationsFinal published version, 1.71 MBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

Cite this

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title = "Implications for ozone control by understanding the survivor bias in observed ozone-volatile organic compounds system",

abstract = "Tropospheric ozone (O3) affects Earth{\textquoteright}s climate and human health. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), major contributors to O3 formation, are of particular interest. Generally, the measured concentrations of VOCs (M-VOCs) and O3 show nonlinear or even opposite time serial-trend. We attributed the phenomenon to survivor bias: lack of insight of the photochemically consumed VOCs (C-VOCs) which emitted from sources to ambient and devote to forming O3, while excessive concern on the measured VOCs (M-VOCs) at observation site. Both observational and model results provide evidence that C-VOCs are the key to O3 formation. We proposed an improved model to quantify the source contributions of C-VOCs (biogenic emissions, gasoline evaporation, industry, etc.) and their impacts on the formation of O3, successfully avoiding the misidentification of dominant VOCs sources originated from the survivor bias in observational data. The survivor bias found in this study highlights that focusing of M-VOCs directly is insufficient and demonstrates the necessity of capture the sources of C-VOCs which contribute to O3 formation.",

author = "Zhenyu Wang and Zongbo Shi and Feng Wang and Weiqing Liang and Guoliang Shi and Weichao Wang and Da Chen and Danni Liang and Yinchang Feng and Russell, {Armistead G.}",

note = "Funding Information: This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (42077191), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (63213072), and the Blue Sky Foundation. This work is a contribution from State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Urban Ambient Air Particulate Matter Pollution Prevention and Control. We would like to thank Dr. Haofei Yu (University of Central Florida) for editing and linguistic assistance. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s).",

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AU - Wang, Weichao

AU - Chen, Da

AU - Liang, Danni

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AU - Russell, Armistead G.

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N2 - Tropospheric ozone (O3) affects Earth’s climate and human health. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs), major contributors to O3 formation, are of particular interest. Generally, the measured concentrations of VOCs (M-VOCs) and O3 show nonlinear or even opposite time serial-trend. We attributed the phenomenon to survivor bias: lack of insight of the photochemically consumed VOCs (C-VOCs) which emitted from sources to ambient and devote to forming O3, while excessive concern on the measured VOCs (M-VOCs) at observation site. Both observational and model results provide evidence that C-VOCs are the key to O3 formation. We proposed an improved model to quantify the source contributions of C-VOCs (biogenic emissions, gasoline evaporation, industry, etc.) and their impacts on the formation of O3, successfully avoiding the misidentification of dominant VOCs sources originated from the survivor bias in observational data. The survivor bias found in this study highlights that focusing of M-VOCs directly is insufficient and demonstrates the necessity of capture the sources of C-VOCs which contribute to O3 formation.

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Implications for ozone control by understanding the survivor bias in observed ozone-volatile organic compounds system

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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