Author(s)

MOHAMED F. YASSIN, MARIAM J. MALEK, MUFREH S. AL-RASHIDI

Abstract

With the rapid of climate change, development of industrialization and urbanization in the world, the level of ozone (O₃) concentration in the atmosphere has become a serious problem causes adverse human health effects. Background O₃ is defined as the fraction of the O₃ present in a given area that is not attributed to anthropogenic sources of local origin. As such, background O₃ has several well-documented sources, both natural and anthropogenic. These include: (a) downward transport of stratospheric O₃ through the free troposphere to near the ground level, (b) in situ O₃ production from methane emitted from swamps and wetlands reacting with natural NOx (from soils, lightning strikes and downward transport of NO from the stratosphere), (c) in situ production of O₃ from reactions of biogenic VOCs with natural NO_x and (d) long-range transport of O₃ from distant pollutant sources. In this study, we collected the O₃ data from air quality monitoring stations for ten years in the state of Kuwait. The O₃ status and trends were analysis by using the Open-Air Package. The background level of O₃ assessed using the Kolmogorov–Zurbenko (KZ) filter technique. The result shows that the observed levels of O₃ background concentrations were high in the urban site. The diurnal variations of O₃ at different locations showed a similar trend.

Keywords

KZ filter, meteorological conditions, Open-Air Package, ozone, urban, suburban and rural environment