| Abstract: | The modification of land use is known to be a major climate change driver to the local warming and air quality in cities. Despite the reduction of NOx over the years, the Selangor state has captured a higher level of O_3 in year 2011. The measurement result has shown that the surge in O_3 level was attributed to the reduction of NO_x/NMHC ratio. This paper hence attempted to identify the role of land use change from 1999 to 2011 on the ground ozone air quality in the tropical urban conurbation, Greater Kuala Lumpur(GKL), Selangor, Malaysia. With the state-of-the-art chemical weather prediction tool, WRFChem, the external synoptic factors and emission inventory were controlled when comparing the chronological land use changes. The results showed that the urban-induced temperature and wind bias in the tropical region has induced stronger wind to disperse the NO_x and carries the TVOC from the suburban to the downwind urban region. The reduction of NO_x/TVOC has gradually shifted towards the optimum O_3 formation regime in 2011. The formation of highly concentrated ozone becomes more sensitive to the increment of TVOC as the NO_x level reduces in the urban. This highlights the essential involvement of TVOC in the ozone formation in lieu of the NOx reduction in the tropical city, a region with growing emitter of reactive biogenic ozone precursors. |
