Study of ozone distribution over the south-eastern France (ESCOMPTE campaign): discrimination between ozone tendencies due to chemistry and to transport

Ozone tendencies due to chemistry and transport are calculated by a mesoscale model using a fine horizontal resolution (3 km × 3 km), over South-Eastern France. Over that region where the anthropogenic emissions are very strong, ozone pollution is highlighted during two intensive observations periods of the ESCOMPTE campaign, when the sea breeze penetrates far into the Durance and Rhone valleys and the up-slope breezes are developed. From a fine analysis of time series of ozone concentration at different ground stations along these valleys and from numerical results, it is possible to discriminate the tendency due to chemistry from the tendency due to dynamical processes. We can distinguish both processes, either local chemical production/loss or dynamical increase/decrease (transport, deposition) on maps of ozone budget according to the meteorological conditions. In particular, we show that the variations due to transport can be have the same order of magnitude than those due to chemistry, reaching 20 ppbv h⁻¹, whereas those due to chemistry are around 30 ppbv h⁻¹.