From the UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
‘The blob’ of abnormal conditions boosted Western US ozone levels
An unusually warm patch of seawater off the West Coast in late 2014 and 2015, nicknamed “the blob,” had cascading effects up and down the coast. Its sphere of influence was centered on the marine environment but extended to weather on land.
A University of Washington Bothell study now shows that this strong offshore pattern also influenced air quality. The climate pattern increased ozone levels above Washington, Oregon, western Utah and northern California, according to a study published Feb. 15 in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
“Washington and Oregon was really the bullseye for the whole thing, because of the location of the winds,” said lead author Dan Jaffe, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. “Salt Lake City and Sacramento were on the edge of this event, but because their ozone is typically higher, those cities felt some of the more acute effects.”
The other author is Lei Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher at UW Bothell.
The study finds that terrestrial effects of “the blob” — warm temperatures, low cloud cover and calmer air — were the perfect ingredients to produce ozone. Ozone levels in June 2015 were between 3 and 13 parts per billion higher than average over the northwestern United States. The pattern pushed concentrations in Salt Lake City and Sacramento above federally allowed limits.
Ozone is an invisible component of smog that is a secondary pollutant formed by a chain reaction. Cars, factories and other sources emit pollution into the atmosphere. Solar rays then provide the spark for chemical reactions that produce the three linked oxygen atoms of ozone. This molecule is hazardous to human health and is subject to federal regulations.
Jaffe’s research group has been measuring ozone since 2004 atop Mount Bachelor in central Oregon to tease apart the sources of ozone and other pollutants, such as forest fires, transport of pollution from overseas and domestic pollution from the United States. In June 2015, members noticed a spike in ozone above any previous measurements.
“At first we were like ‘Whoa, maybe we made a mistake.’ We looked at our sensors to see if we made an error in the calibration. But we couldn’t find any mistakes,” Jaffe said. “Then I looked at other ozone data from around the Pacific Northwest, and everybody was high that year.”
Jaffe’s measurements are from the University of Washington’s Mount Bachelor Observatory in central Oregon. Members of his group use the ski hill’s lifts for transportation and electrical power to support year-round measurements at the 9,000-foot peak. Air is pulled with vacuum pumps into a room to be sampled by a variety of instruments in the summit’s lift house.
The June 2015 ozone levels at the observatory were 12 parts per billion higher than the average of previous observations for that time. Jaffe learned that air quality managers in Sacramento and Salt Lake City had several times recorded eight-hour averages above the 70 parts per billion limit set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
“This was a very widespread phenomenon going all the way to California,” Jaffe said. “Managers saw that air quality was violating the air quality standards on many days, and they didn’t know why.”
The new study analyzes larger-scale climate data to show that the areas that recorded higher-than-normal ozone were the same regions that had high temperatures, weak winds and low cloud cover.
“Ultimately, it all links back to the blob, which was the most unusual meteorological event we’ve had in decades,” Jaffe said. “Temperatures were high, and it was much less cloudy than normal, both of which trigger ozone production. And because of that high-pressure system off the coast, the winds were much lower than normal. Winds blow pollution away, but when they don’t blow, you get stagnation and the pollution is higher.”
The paper also finds an effect from higher biogenic emissions, the scented emissions from trees and plants that contain natural ozone-producing particles.
The study focuses on June 2015 because the wildfire season began in July and dominated conditions in the later summer. Jaffe’s group is exploring that effect in a separate project.
While it is generally understood that warmer temperatures will favor ozone production, Jaffe said, this study suggests that broader-scale climate patterns also play a role in air quality and human health.
“Our environmental laws need to be written with an understanding that there’s a lot of variability from one year to the next, and with an understanding of the long-term path of where we’re heading under climate change,” Jaffe said. “This work helps us understand the link between climate variability and air quality, and it can give us an idea of what to expect as our planet continues to warm.”
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The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
If the blob is bad then we need to get rid of it. How much water are we talking about? People should demostrate and petition the government to get rid of the blob. How much will it cost to relocate the blob’s warm water to a place where it will cool such as the antarctic ocean.
The arctic is closer.
Gubbmint Money.
Money is no problem for the Gubbmint.
Antarctic it shall be, therefore.
Auto
That is why the Antartic is better because it is farther away from the blob.
“Air is pulled with vacuum pumps into a room to be sampled by a variety of instruments in the summit’s lift house. ”
Don’t electrical arcs cause O2 to recombine into O3? Might there be an arcing cable lift motor in the lift house?
It does seem like the most recent research papers have been dredging new bottoms.
A “University of Washington Bothell study” uses 11 years of measurements. Measured in a room with many instruments from air cycled in via electric motor.
An 11 year chart with only the highest measurement per year marked.
University of Washington Bothell’s seance spiritualists do not need to prove causation, nor even correlation.
UOWB’s psychics are able to divine what caused a temporary minor increase blip; and they have named the devil cause. It was caused by the blob.
Now, I could have sworn the blob was offshore in the Northwest for several years, apparently without affecting UOWB’s graphic.
No research into sources of ozone locally, just assumptions.
No research into possible long term ozone measurements, just assumptions.
No attempts test/investigate all possible causes, just assumptions.
Not even dodgy mannian mathematics, just assumptions.
Then, I came to the final sentence and it almost makes sense.
No wonder the research is terrible. UOWB follows NOAA’s illuminating science and footsteps.
NOAA has made it repeatedly obvious, that all it takes is to declare the result then double down; refuse requests for info, refuse to debate, refuse to acknowledge inconvenient research and analysis, refuse to back down from claiming successful research.
FG: “smell the ozone”
I always thought that they were trying to smell the dimethylsulfide ‘sea smell’.
From the article: ““Ultimately, it all links back to the blob, which was the most unusual meteorological event we’ve had in decades,” Jaffe said.”
I don’t believe it is accurate to say that it has been decades since a high pressure system set up off the west coast of the U.S., and sat there for a while.
High pressure systems set up all the time off the west coast and then usually move slowly east. Sometimes they stop and linger over an area for a while, which causes increased temperatures over the land for as long as the system lingers, and that’s what happened with the Blob, too, only this took place over the ocean.
Dan Jaffe, everything’s cool – 16 on Feb.2017
Blue sky over Bürmoos, light breeze and the birds chirping.
Nothing alarming.
Even if true (see the very first response post by Dinsdale above), what’s the big deal? Just release a tiny bit of that old-formula Freon over the affected cities and POOF!, there goes the extra ozone.
O3 is formed from O2 in the atmosphere so reducing the amount of O2 in the atmosphere will also reduce the amounnt of O3 that can be produced. The burning of fossil fuels converts O2 to both CO2 and H2O and hence reduces the capability of the atmosphere to produce O2 hence the burning of fossil fuels han help reduce O3 production. We are talking about burning fossil fuels just as cleanly as possible. Removing all of the O2 from our atmosphere would have a cooling effect because it would significantly reduce the mass of the atmophere amd hence the depth of the troposphere.