Megacity impacts on regional ozone formation: Observations and WRF-Chem modeling for the MIRAGE-Shanghai field campaign

The main scientific focus is the study of ozone chemical formation not only in the urban area, but also on a regional scale of the surrounding area of Shanghai. The results show that during the experiment period, the ozone photochemical formation was strongly under the VOC (volatile organic compound)-limited condition in the urban area of Shanghai. Moreover, the VOC-limited condition occurred not only in the city, but also in the larger regional area.

There was a continuous enhancement of ozone concentrations in the downwind of the megacity of Shanghai, resulting in a significant enhancement of ozone concentrations in a very large regional area in the surrounding region of Shanghai. The sensitivity study of the model suggests that there is a threshold value for switching from VOC-limited condition to NOx (nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide)-limited condition. The threshold value is strongly dependent on the emission ratio of NOx / VOCs.

When the ratio is about 0.4, the Shanghai region is under a strong VOC-limited condition over the regional scale. In contrast, when the ratio is reduced to about 0.1, the Shanghai region is under a strong NOx-limited condition. The estimated threshold value (on the regional scale) for switching from VOC-limited to NOx-limited condition ranges from 0.1 to 0.2.

This result has important implications for ozone production in this region and will facilitate the development of effective O₃ control strategies in the Shanghai region.