Characteristics of Sea Breeze Front Development with Various Synoptic Conditions and Its Impact on Lower Troposphere Ozone Formation

To examine the correlation between the sizes of sea breeze fronts and pollutants under the influence of synoptic fields, a numerical simulation was conducted in the southeast coastal area of the Korean Peninsula, where relatively high concentrations of pollutants occur because of the presence of various kinds of industrial developments. Sea breeze and sea breeze front days during the period 2005-09 were identified using wind profiler data and, according to the results, the number of days were 72 and 53, respectively. When synoptic forcing was weak, sea breeze fronts moved fast both in horizontal fields and in terms of wind velocity, while in the case of strong synoptic forcing, sea breeze fronts remained at the coast or moved slowly due to strong opposing flows. In this case, the sea breeze front development function and horizontal potential temperature difference were larger than with weak synoptic forcing. The ozone concentration that moves together with sea breeze fronts was also formed along the frontal surfaces. Ozone advection and diffusion in the case of strong synoptic forcing was suppressed at the frontal surface and the concentration gradient was large. The vertical distribution of ozone was very low due to the Thermal Internal Boundary Layer (TIBL) being low.