Vertical ozone distributions observed using tethered ozonesondes in a coastal industrial city, Kaohsiung, in southern Taiwan

This work presents the vertical distributions of ozone and meteorological parameters observed with tethered ozonesondes and meteorological radiosondes in the lower atmosphere during an ozone episode on March 25–27, 2003, in Kaohsiung City in southern Taiwan. Kaohsiung is a coastal industrial city with inland mountain ranges to the east. Extremely complicated ozone structures were identified that spanned day and night during the experimental period. During afternoons, the lower atmosphere was divided into two stratified air layers with substantially different ozone concentrations. On the episode day (March 26), average ozone concentration in the near-ground layer was 85 ppb and the aloft layer was 140 ppb. A very high ozone peak of 199 ppb measured aloft likely resulted from an elevated large point source. Several no-ozone air layers, distributed throughout 400–750 m, were observed to transport onshore during the nigh. As well, elevated ozone layers peaking at 60–90 ppb and 90–160 ppb were detected below and above the no-ozone air layers, respectively. These complicated ozone structures were likely formed through titration of plumes from large point sources and the circulations of sea breezes or combined sea-breeze/mountain flows in the study area.