Comparison between weekend and weekday ozone concentration in large cities in France

This paper examines ozone data from five large French cities (Marseilles, Lyon, Paris, Strasbourg and Toulouse) in spring and summer over a three-year period to study the possible influence of local primary pollutant emissions. In these cities the level of traffic emission varies according to the day of the week. There is a decrease of about 25% in traffic emissions between non-consecutive Tuesdays and Sundays. Traffic emissions on Fridays are about 40% more than on non-consecutive Sundays whereas they seem to be similar for non-consecutive Tuesdays and Thursdays. Despite this variation in traffic emissions between Fridays and Sundays, 85% of daily ozone maxima are identical for all days compared; in 15% of cases, percentiles of daily ozone maxima vary by about 20% at the most. This difference is observed for the highest values of daily ozone maxima that we can find both in rural and urban sites. Marseilles is the most pollution-sensitive city; every site of this area is concerned, which gives a regional origin to ozone variability. In the less-populated Toulouse area, differences between ozone on Fridays and Sundays are less significant. Our results show the importance of advection phenomena of ozone. It calls into question strategies of local reductions in traffic during ozone episodes. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.