A temporal analysis of ozone concentration in New England
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Abstract
Concentrations of tropospheric ozone in New England are increasing. Since ozone is a known phytotoxin and a probable lung irritant, understanding the temporal distribution of ozone may assist in reducing its concentrations and thus attenuating its detrimental effects. Five months of hourly measurements of ozone concentrations at 31 air quality monitoring stations represent both a spatial and temporal distribution of ozone in New England. Analysis of hourly ozone concentrations using the Box-Jenkins time-series models indicate the underlying process in a time-series. The univariate Box-Jenkins ARIMA models that fit the ozone data are second-order autoregressive models with a periodic pattern of 24 hours. Thus the models reflect the persistence of ozone from one hour to the next two hours, and the diurnal pattern of ozone concentrations. The data from some air quality monitoring stations cannot be fit by an ARIMA model, indicating that this univariate approach is not insufficient in describing the fundamental stochastic processes influencing tropospheric ozone concentrations.
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Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University
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