Analysis of results

 

After taking a careful look at the tropospheric ozone maps from November 2001 to December 2002, it seems that the actual concentration of ozone is very much like I have predicted. But there were a few surprises too.

 

Northern Hemisphere

The maps show that in the Northern Hemisphere the greatest concentrations of ozone are in places such as Japan, Europe, USA, sometimes China, and surprisingly Canada. Below is a graph for the Northern Hemisphere:

Figure 8. Number of days for which large concentrations of tropospheric ozone floated over a specific country/continent

 

Japan - Compared to some other places, very little ozone was actually floating over Japan; but if one takes a look at the maps, it's evident that there is quite a large concentration of ozone, which is almost always floating around the island that is Japan. Whether this is caused by some sort of industry, cannot be said for sure.

Europe – It can be seen from the graph above (Graph 1) that there was quite a lot of tropospheric ozone over Europe. However, most of the ozone didn't actually originate in Europe, but instead floated from somewhere around the North Pole.

Northern Africa – There wasn't much going on around Northern Africa. I have chosen to look at Northern Africa in the first place because of the Sahara desert. At times the wind is really strong in that area, which lifts big amounts of sand and dust into the air and carries it some way over the Atlantic; I wanted to see if this had any effect on the tropospheric ozone. Apparently not.

China – I was a little surprised by the fact that the troposphere over China contained so little ozone. Knowing the quantity of air pollution over China I expected that the ozone level would be somewhere around that of Japan; but this proves that the pollution over China is mostly dust (or something else). Besides, most of the ozone in China floated from some place else.

India – Like China, I was a little bemused by the low amount of ozone over India. However, this shows that the pollution over India is mostly dust (or something else).

USA – Almost never did tropospheric ozone originate over the USA, but instead it floated over from the North.

Canada – It shocked me when I first looked at the maps and saw great concentrations of ozone over Canada, it was even second highest in Graph 1. However, very little ozone actually originated in Canada; if one takes a look at the maps, it is clear that most of the ozone floats into Canada from somewhere around the North Pole.

 

Southern Hemisphere

Compared to the Northern Hemisphere, there was very little tropospheric ozone floating over the continents in the Southern Hemisphere. But strangely, at times there was quite a lot of ozone over the ocean (over 200 DU).

The two graphs below show the Southern Hemisphere from November 2001 to February 2002; and November 2002 – December 2002 respectively.

Figure 9 . Number of days for which large concentrations of tropospheric ozone floated over a specific country/continent

Figure 10. Number of days for which large concentrations of tropospheric ozone floated over a specific country/continent

 

Australia – Hardly any tropospheric ozone was over Australia. Some ozone did occasionally float from the ocean.

South America – As with Australia, the only ozone that was over South America floated from the ocean.

Southern Africa – The case with Southern Africa is the same as those of Australia and South America. If any ozone did float over Southern Africa, it was from the ocean.

Also, after comparing the maps of Nov. – Feb. 2001-2002 to Nov.-Dec. 2002, I found that the quantity of ozone in the Southern Hemisphere actually decreased!

 

 

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