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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
P repared as a NARSTO initiative, this
tropospheric O 3 assessment provides
comprehensive information for scientists, policy
makers, and other concerned audiences whose efforts
are directed toward understanding and mitigating the
harmful impacts of O3 pollution. Atmospheric
scientists examine O3 production and transport
through measurements, analysis, and the application
of mathematical air-quality simulation models. In
turn, policy makers establish standards and control
strategies based on scientific evidence as well as on
other drivers. Thus, both communities depend upon
similar scientific tools (e.g., measurement networks
and modeling systems) and are mutually affected by
each other’s progress. For example, increased
scientific knowledge may suggest regulatory
refinements; conversely, compliance shortfalls may
prompt science for further examination of the O3
phenomenon.
As indicated in the accompanying Textbox, the
NARSTO Ozone Assessment contains two product
components. The first of these is a set of Critical
Review Papers, which are intended to provide
detailed, current reviews of all salient scientific
aspects of tropospheric ozone pollution. The second
component, the NARSTO Ozone Assessment
Document presented in this report, provides a
distillation of this scientific material, and is intended
for a broader audience, including scientists, policy
analysts, and the interested public. Both the Critical
Review Papers and the Assessment Document have
been guided by formally posed sets of Science
Questions and Policy Questions, which were set forth
after consultation with members of the science and
policy communities.
This Assessment Document synthesizes the scientific
understanding of O3 pollution at the close of the 20th
Century, giving special consideration to behavior on
expanded scales over the North American continent,
encompassing Canada, the United States, and
Mexico. Although policy recommendations are not
within the purview of this document, the scientific
information it contains is intended for use by policy
makers in the three countries.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Policy Issues An Assessment of Tropospheric
and Related
Information Ozone Pollution
Needs
A North American Perspective
Science and Policy
Questions Surface Urban/Suburban
Surface Rural
Ozonesonde
CRITICAL REVIEW
PAPERS
The NARSTO Ozone Assessment, prepared in
response to key ozone-management issues and
associated information needs, is a tool for applying
current scientific knowledge to air-quality
management and for identifying the scientific
advances necessary to further this process.
What is the issue?
H uman activities have increased surface-level O3
concentrations; research has focused on
understanding the associated causal mechanisms;
policy makers have employed scientific
understanding in efforts to mitigate against the risks
to human health; and decades of research and
mitigative refinements now reveal that tropospheric
O 3 pollution extends to continental and even
hemispheric scales. O3 production occurs when
volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen
oxides (NOx) are exposed to sunlight. Since the
emissions of these O3 precursors are directly linked
to today’s urban and industrial life style, mitigative
reductions are both societally and economically
costly. For this reason, policy makers have sought
guidance from scientists in determining effective
ways to meet health-based O3 standards or goals.
Providing such guidance has proven to be a
formidable task. The response of O3 to changes in
VOC and NOx emissions can be quite complex and
variable. Moreover, winds can transport both O3 and
its precursors over long distances and, as a result,
exposure to elevated O3 can arise from an array of
local and distant sources.
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NARSTO OZONE ASSESSMENT
Why is a scientific assessment appropriate now?
T he surface-level O3 pollution problem persists.
O3 concentrations at various urban locations in
North America do indeed show the benefits of the
substantial mitigative emission controls that began
in the 1970s. Nevertheless, in 1995 some 70 million
people lived in or near U.S. counties where O3
exceeded the standards; more than 13 million
Canadians were similarly located, and the same was
true for 20 million of Mexico’s population.
New and emerging policies create the need for
scientific input. As a result of recent epidemiological
and clinical studies, more stringent regulations have
been promulgated in the United States and are being
considered in Canada. These more stringent
standards and objectives introduce the need for a
heightened understanding of O3 science and its use
in air-quality management. Similar considerations
associated with fine particulate matter (PM)
underscore the need to better understand the
relationship between O3 and PM.
A continental perspective on the O3 problem is
emerging. Most fundamentally, it is apparent that
anthropogenic activities are affecting O 3
concentrations on a wide range of spatial scales:
urban, rural, continental and even hemispheric. This
realization has sparked new directions in mitigative
strategies and has created the need for better scientific
understanding of how the processes that foster O3
pollution on these various scales are linked.
What are the findings of the assessment?
A s noted previously, this assessment is framed
in the context of specific, overarching Policy
Questions, selected to establish and maintain focus
on key issues associated with North American ozone-
pollution management. As a consequence, the
scientific findings of this assessment reflect the Policy
Questions and their science counterparts. These
findings appear immediately below, categorized in
terms of their association with the formal Policy
Questions.
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Policy Question 1. What changes have occurred to
tropospheric O3 science over the last decade that
might alter (or confirm) the course of current O3 air
quality management strategies?
• O3 pollution occurs over multiple spatial and
temporal scales and is complicated by
overlapping chemical and meteorological
interactions. This complexity has
confounded efforts to optimize precursor
emission-control strategies, especially those
which have been based on analyses of limited
observational data.
• Major field studies have shown that
meteorological features, including air flow,
vertical mixing variations, and fair-weather
conditions persisting for more than one day,
are key factors in creating conditions that
favor high O3 concentrations. Detailed local
and regional meteorological information is
essential for development of reliable O3
reduction strategies.
• There is evidence that background O 3
concentrations have been increasing in the
Northern Hemisphere over the past century
in response to the massive industrialization
that has taken place. If true, this implies that
the current background concentration of O3
over North America is due in part to
anthropogenic emissions of O3 precursors
from our continent; thus reductions in O3
precursor emissions from our continent could
lower the apparent continental background
O 3 concentration as well as urban and
regional O3 concentrations. It also implies
that reductions in O3 precursor emissions
from other continents might also lower the
apparent North American background.
• Recent and anticipated changes to national
ambient air quality policies in North America
have tended to move O 3 standards and
objectives closer to the background O3
concentrations. This narrowing of the gap

between background and air-quality
standards and objectives requires more
sophisticated air-quality management
practices.
• The new and currently contemplated O3
standards and objectives noted immediately
above will place stringent requirements on
present-day monitoring, which is urban
oriented, and on air-quality modeling
methods, which now must account for wider
ranges of meteorological conditions.
• Advances in measurement methods greatly
improve the potential for sustained
measurement of O3 and its precursors, as well
as chemical co-products of O3. Application
of these methods will enhance the capability
of determining and tracking progress toward
achieving the O3 objectives or standards in
urban and rural environments.
• Precursor emission inventories have
improved in the last decade, based on federal,
provincial, and state emission inventory
improvement programs, implementation of
continuous NOx monitors on large U.S. point
sources, and extensive comparisons of
mobile-source emissions estimated from
models and on-road surrogates in different
locations. Nonetheless, considerable
uncertainty remains in estimating and
projecting emissions from all sources.
• Biogenic emissions of VOCs have been
found to be an important factor in O 3
management strategies in some locations.
These emissions are still uncertain and need
to be quantified with higher precision.
• In some urban cases where O3 formation is
sensitive to VOC emissions, consideration
of the photochemical reactivity of the VOC
mixture may offer opportunities for
improved O3 management.
• Despite extensive improvements in
emission-based air-quality models, their
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
capability to accurately estimate existing
conditions remains problematic. This is
leading to management practices that rely
increasingly on a weight-of-evidence
approach, synthesizing observations,
knowledge of precursor emissions, and air-
quality modeling. In this regard, the recent
development of observation-based models
for estimating the local and regional
sensitivity to VOC or NOx changes can
provide an important adjunct to modeling for
strategy development.
Policy Question 2. How manageable is the O 3
problem for a given area? [What portion of the
problem is local and what portion is transported in?
What portion of the problem is essentially irreducible,
and what portion is potentially controllable?]
• Results from recent major field studies and
multiscale air-quality modeling exercises
indicate that O3 accumulation is strongly
influenced by a number of uncontrollable
factors, including extended periods of limited
mixing, recirculation of polluted air between
the ground and aloft, and the long-range
transport of O3 and its precursors. These
factors affect essentially all areas of chronic
O3 accumulation. As a result, management
strategies that account for emissions
emanating from distant sources as well as
local emissions are often required.
• Local VOC emission reductions may be
effective in reducing O3 in urban centers,
while NOx emission reductions become more
effective at distances removed from urban
centers and other major precursor emissions.
These rules-of-thumb have yet to be tested
extensively in North America, but recent
efforts to implement such programs based
on them have been proposed.
• The presence of biogenic emissions
complicates the management of controllable
precursor emissions and influences the
relative importance of VOC and NO x
controls.
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Policy Question 3. Are existing emission-control
measures helping to bring the O3 problem under
control? [For a given area, if these control measures
are continued, will they lead to O3 abatement?]
• There is no single pattern for North American
O3 trends. In the United States, the average
daily maximum 1-hr O 3 concentration
decreased by about 15% over the decade
1986–1996. The largest downward trends
have been found in Los Angeles, New York,
and Chicago. However, O3 trends show
considerable differences from region to
region and some areas show upward trends.
In Canada, there have been upward O3 trends
in most of the more populated regions:
Vancouver, the Atlantic Provinces, and
Ontario. Peak O3 concentrations in Mexico
City rose before 1990 but have leveled off
since. Some of the differences in trends may
result from country-specific approaches to
emission controls and some differences
could originate from country-specific
methods used to establish trends.
• Neither reliable, self-consistent precursor
emission estimates, nor ambient precursor
concentration observations, exist that can be
used to robustly test the extent to which the
downward O3 trends have resulted from
emission-control measures.
• Population increase, growth in motor vehicle
use, and demand for energy have offset much
of the O3 air-quality benefits that might have
come from implemented emission-control
and management practices. Nonetheless, air
quality would be considerably worse than it
is today if these emission controls were not
in-place.
• In the case of Los Angeles, measurements
indicate that O 3 reductions have been
achieved despite a continued growth in the
metropolitan area, shifts in industrial and
commercial practices, and a growth in
vehicle miles traveled.
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Policy Question 4. What are the relationships
between the ongoing efforts to manage tropospheric
O3 pollution and the scientific understanding of the
issues?
• It appears that a variety of unmanageable
factors (e.g., meteorology, natural emissions,
population growth) have impeded our ability
to achieve the O3 objectives and standards
in North America. The extent to which these
factors could hinder progress was greatly
underestimated when O 3 mitigation
strategies were first implemented.
• Downward O3 trends at many locales are
likely the result, at least in part, of emission
controls. In the United States, the declines
in surface-level urban O3 and likely declines
in urban O3 precursors are consistent with
the understanding of the controlling factors
in urban O3 pollution. However, because of
historical deficiencies in the monitoring of
O 3 precursors, it is not yet possible to
establish an unequivocal cause-and-effect
relationship between trends in O 3 and
precursor emissions.
• Some data suggest that emission controls
have had less effect on 8-hr averaged O3
concentrations at a given location than they
had on the equivalent 1-hr averaged
concentrations.
• Observational evidence combined with
large-scale air-quality modeling indicates
that long-range transport of precursors and
O3 needs to be accounted for in future O3
mitigation strategies.
• There is evidence that the application of air-
quality modeling for strategy development
can cause regulators to be misled, if due
caution is not exercised. Careful model
evaluation and verification is required before
model results can be used reliably. Iterative
approaches based on aerometric observations
and other diagnostic tools as well as air-
quality modeling potentially can provide
more robust planning.

Policy Question 5. What are alternative approaches
for reducing current and future O3 concentrations
on urban (<200 km) and regional (200-2000 km)
scales?
• The effectiveness of VOC and NOx controls
is not uniquely defined by the location or
nature of the emissions. Responses to
emission changes are far more complicated
than previously thought. Historical strategies
of O 3 mitigation were based on VOC
reductions or NOx reductions. It now is
recognized that the relative effectiveness of
VOC and NOx controls may change from one
location to another and even from episode
to episode at the same location.
• The current scientific understanding of O3-
forming processes suggests general
guidelines for choosing VOC and/or NOx
emission reductions for the abatement of O3
over urban and regional scales.
- Abatement of averaged O3 levels in the
urban core (which, while containing the
highest population density, may not be
where the highest O3 concentrations
occur): A VOC-based strategy frequently
will be most effective, although areas
with large natural VOC emissions (e.g.,
emissions from vegetation) may be
possible exceptions.
- Abatement of averaged O3 levels on
regional scales: A NOx-based strategy
often will be the most effective, but an
increase of O3 concentration in the urban
core (the “NOx disbenefit”) can occur.
- Abatement of peak O 3 levels: A
combined VOC- and NO x -based
reduction strategy likely will be required.
- A strategy that controls the emissions of
VOCs with the highest O 3-forming
potential, in contrast to a strategy that
simply controls the total mass of VOC
emissions, can be effective in urban
areas where O 3 formation is VOC-
limited and where natural hydrocarbon
emissions are small.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
• NOx emissions from different sizes and types
of power plants and other point sources may
produce different amounts of O3 for each
molecule (or ton) of NOx emitted. If this is
confirmed by future field studies,
consideration might be given to the size and
type of a given NOx source in air-quality
management planning.
Policy Question 6. How can we best track and assess
the progress and effectiveness of our O3 management
efforts?
• The tracking and assessing of progress and
effectiveness requires long-term monitoring
data. However, while current national
monitoring networks can document ambient
concentrations, they cannot robustly attribute
changes in O3 concentrations to specific
changes in precursor emissions in most
locations of North America. Expansion of
the networks to include O 3 precursor
measurements is occurring, but spatial
coverage, quality assurance, and timely
access to the data by users require continued
diligence.
• The limitations of many current monitoring
practices are not widely recognized. There
are few chemical species, besides O3, that
are currently monitored reliably in a regular,
continuous, unattended mode. This limitation
often has not been recognized in the design
and operation of policy-supportive networks.
A notable failure is the monitoring of NOx =
NO (nitric oxide) + NO2 (nitrogen dioxide)
as an O3 precursor. The analytical method
commonly employed incorrectly measures
NO2 and sometimes lacks the sensitivity
required for NO. As a result, NOx data being
collected at many North American
monitoring sites are of limited value. A
spectrum of suspected problems also may
compromise the value of routine speciated
VOC measurements. As a
consequence of these limitations, a major
effort is needed to improve the present
monitoring networks in all three North
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American countries. Feasible changes
include:
- More extensive monitoring in rural
areas.
- Enhanced monitoring of O3 precursors.
- A systematic network appraisal process.
Such a process would provide the
opportunity to demonstrate progress
(hence justify long-term monitoring) to
address new issues (e.g., O3 in rural
areas) through network redesign, and
to correct discovered limitations (e.g.,
inadequate NOx and VOC measurement
methods), thereby improving data
quality.
- A real-time, central archive of air-quality
data. The capabilities of modern data
technology have been demonstrated in
meteorological networks around the
world. The benefits of immediate access
would stimulate the user (and
evaluation) communities to develop
diagnostic tools that would ultimately
impact the approaches to air-quality
management itself.
- Harmonization of the air-quality
monitoring networks across Canada, the
United States, and Mexico.
• The tracking and assessment of progress and
effectiveness within the air-quality
management system could be enhanced
through an iterative, three-step process. The
three steps, which typically occur in serial
order and are increasingly more difficult to
perform as one proceeds down the list, are
- Step 1. Verify that implemented
emission controls are performing
according to specifications. This
involves testing and evaluating the
emission controls implemented, and
verifying that these control measures do
in fact comply with specifications and
established requirements.
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- Step 2. Verify that the O3 concentrations
are responding to the emission changes
documented in step 1. Because of the
complexities of the O3 system, this step
requires two coupled tests:
demonstration, through ambient
measurements of the precursor species,
that precursor concentrations have
responded as expected to changes in
precursor emissions; and demonstration,
through ambient measurements of O3,
that it has responded as expected to the
changes in the precursor concentrations.
- Step 3. Verify that the relevant public
health and welfare indicators have
appropriately responded to the observed
changes in O3. This last step is the most
difficult to demonstrate, and many years
may be required to establish data for
verification. However, the significant
challenges associated with this step
should not preclude completion of steps
1 and 2.
Policy Question 7. Will our efforts to manage O3 help
or hinder efforts to mitigate other environmental
problems, such as acid rain, fine particles and global
climate change, and vice versa?
• Because of the linkages between O3 and other
pollutants, it should be possible, and
probably desirable, to develop integrated
abatement strategies that effectively address
other air quality problems, while at the same
time mitigating O3 pollution. By the same
token it is possible that an O3 mitigation
strategy that does not account for these
linkages might hinder efforts to mitigate
other environmental problems.
• Most of the air quality problems in North
America are closely tied to the use of fossil
fuels. Reduced emissions from these fuels
would undoubtedly improve air quality
including that related to O3.

• Common precursor emissions and
photochemical pathways couple O 3 and
PM2.5. However, because of the complexity
of the mechanisms that couple these two
pollutants, there does not appear to be a
simple relationship between O3 and PM2.5
and a given control strategy aimed at one
pollutant has the potential to help or hinder
the abatement of the other. The present
understanding of these mechanisms is
incomplete and thus the combined PM2.5/ O3
response in a given region to a specific
pollution abatement measure is uncertain.
The development of a more complete
understanding of the PM2.5/ O3 system will
require focused, process-oriented field
studies.
• When present in the upper troposphere, O3
is a very effective greenhouse gas. Strategies
that reduce O3 concentrations on urban and
regional scales without increasing the export
of O 3 precursor compounds to the free
troposphere might limit O3's role in global
warming while also mitigating O3 pollution.
While reductions in tropospheric O3 may
lead to increases in the accumulation of
methane (CH4), another greenhouse gas, the
benefits of reducing O 3 are thought to
outweigh the disbenefits from increasing
CH4.
Concluding Remarks
I n a final analysis one can draw both optimistic
and pessimistic conclusions from this assessment.
On the optimistic side, one can note that pollution
controls currently in place have resulted in
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
substantive improvements, compared to the air
quality that probably would exist in their absence.
Moreover, scientific understanding of ozone-
formation phenomena, the ability to incorporate these
features into modern computer models, the
technology to measure ozone precursors and their
products reliably, and techniques for quantitative
estimation of both natural and human emissions all
have advanced markedly during the past ten-year
period. Properly linked with ozone-management
practices, these advances can be expected to lead to
significant improvements in future air quality in all
of North America.
From a more pessimistic outlook, much of the
potential for real air-quality improvement has been
offset by expanding populations and human activity
levels in North America. Combined with the
demands imposed by recent and anticipated revisions
in air-quality standards and increases in hemispheric
“background” levels, continued growth in population
and economic activity will present particularly
challenging issues during future years. Furthermore,
and despite the advances noted above, significant
additional scientific understanding will be required
to develop ozone-management practices that provide
environmental protection at a reasonable cost.
O3 science is better understood than it was ten years
ago. Progress remains to be made in this scientific
understanding. This understanding is important for
developing sound O3-management strategies and
improving air quality. The linkage between the
scientific and the policy communities is a key element
in this regard. In large measure, our real progress
during the next decade will depend on the ability of
these two communities to interact closely and
extensively in a mutually productive fashion.
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