ACP Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics ACP 1680-7324 Copernicus GmbH Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/acp-9-1393-2009 Severe ozone air pollution in the Persian Gulf region Lelieveld J. 1 2 Hoor P. 2 Jöckel P. 2 Pozzer A. 1 Hadjinicolaou P. 1 Cammas J.-P. 3 Beirle S. 2 Energy, Environment and Water Research Centre, The Cyprus Institute, 20 Kavafi Street, 1645 Nicosia, Cyprus Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Becherweg 27, 55128 Mainz, Germany Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, CNRS – Laboratoire d'Aérologie, 14 Avenue E. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France 20 02 2009 9 4 1393 1406 This is an open-access article ditributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/1393/2009/acp-9-1393-2009.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/1393/2009/acp-9-1393-2009.pdf

Recently it was discovered that over the Middle East during summer ozone mixing ratios can reach a pronounced maximum in the middle troposphere. Here we extend the analysis to the surface and show that especially in the Persian Gulf region conditions are highly favorable for ozone air pollution. We apply the EMAC atmospheric chemistry-climate model to investigate long-distance transport and the regional formation of ozone. Further, we make use of available in situ and satellite measurements and compare these with model output. The results indicate that the region is a hot spot of photochemical smog where European Union air quality standards are violated throughout the year. Long-distance transports of air pollution from Europe and the Middle East, natural emissions and stratospheric ozone conspire to bring about relatively high background ozone mixing ratios. This provides a hotbed to strong and growing indigenous air pollution in the dry local climate, and these conditions are likely to get worse in the future.

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