Winter Rain and Summer Ozone: A Predictive Relationship

¹ Bay Area Air Pollution Control District, San Francisco, California 94109

Insights from dendrochronology have provided a new seasonal predictor for air pollution meteorology. In the San Francisco Bay Area summer ozone excesses over the federal ozone standard are correlated (correlation coefficient r = .87) with precipitation for the two preceding winters, a factor related to tree-ring width in a precipitation-stressed climate. The hypothesis that reactive hydrocarbon emissions from vegetative biomass affects these ozone excesses was supported by a similar correlation between summer hydrocarbon average maximums and the two-winter precipitation factor, reaching r = .88 at suburban stations. A weak tendency for hot summers to follow wet winters (in 16 years of California data) explains only a minor part of the ozone-rain relationship in multiple correlations.