Abstract

Keywords

Tropospheric ozone

Abstract

Tropospheric ozone (tropO3) has been suggested to be one of the main air pollutants threatening forest health in heavily polluted parts of Europe, the United States of America, Asia and Latin America. In particular, in Asia and Africa biomass burning due to anthropogenic activities has a significant impact on the production of tropO3. Current levels of tropO3 have been shown to cause damage to forest vegetation while climate models predict a global increase of tropO3 concentrations. Furthermore, tropO3 plays a key role in the atmospheric radiation transfer and its increase enhances the greenhouse effect. Numerous studies have demonstrated the role of trans-Atlantic and continental air masses transport and the impact of large-scale anthropogenic emissions on tropO3 levels. While international cooperative programs provide a good understanding of origin and transport of tropO3, there is a lack of international cooperation investigating the assessment and monitoring of tropO3 effects on forest vegetation. This session aims to address scientists from Asia, Latin America, the USA and Europe to give a state-of-the-art assessment for a better overview of the global threat by tropO3 to forest health and to initiate an improvement in the use of international synergies.

LWF Classification

Network: LWF, Category: ISI,