Quantifying the contributions of individual NOx sources to the trend in ozone radiative forcing

Source attribution of ozone radiative forcing (RF) is a prerequisite for developing adequate emission mitigation strategies with regards to climate impact. Decadal means of ozone fields from transient climate-chemistry simulations (1960–2019) are analysed and the temporal development of ozone RF resulting from individual NOx sources, e.g. road traffic, industry and air traffic, is investigated. We calculated an ozone production efficiency which is mainly dependent on the altitude of NOx emission and on the amount of background NOx with values varying over one order of magnitude. Air traffic and lightning are identified as NOx sources with a two and five times higher ozone production efficiency, respectively, than ground based sources. Second, radiative efficiency of source attributed ozone (i.e. total induced radiative flux change per column ozone) shows clear dependence on latitudinal structure of the ozone anomaly and, to a lesser extent, to its altitude. Lightning induced ozone shows the highest radiative efficiency because lightning primarily enhances ozone in low latitudes in the mid-troposphere (higher altitudes). Superimposed on these effects, a saturation effect causes a decreasing radiative efficiency with increasing background ozone concentrations. Changes in RF attributed to NOx induced ozone from 1960 to 2019 are controlled by three factors: changes in emissions, changes in ozone production efficiency and changes in the radiative efficiency. Leading effect is emission increase, but changes in ozone production efficiency increase ozone RF by a factor of three for air traffic, or reduce ozone RF by around 30% for ships. Additionally, changes in the radiative efficiency due to saturation effects change ozone RF by 2–5%.

► New methodology to attribute ozone radiative forcing changes to emission sectors.
► Changes in ozone RF are controlled by changes in emissions, chemistry and radiation.
► Impact on climate change are partly damped by chemical saturation.
► Radiative efficiency is largest for low latitude and high altitude perturbations.
► Impact on climate change is damped by radiative saturation.