Impacts of meteorology and precursor emission change on O3 variation in Tianjin, China from 2015 to 2021

•O3 pollution in Tianjin was largely driven by the changes in precursors emissions.•Meteorology alleviated O3 pollution in 2015-2016 but aggravated O3 thereafter.•Temperature is the most important meteorological factor governing O3 pollution. Deterioration of surface ozone (O3) pollution in Northern China over the past few years received much attention. For many cities, it is still under debate whether the trend of surface O3 variation is driven by meteorology or the change in precursors emissions. In this work, a time series decomposition method (Seasonal-Trend decomposition procedure based on Loess (STL)) and random forest (RF) algorithm were utilized to quantify the meteorological impacts on the recorded O3 trend and identify the key meteorological factors affecting O3 pollution in Tianjin, the biggest coastal port city in Northern China. After “removing” the meteorological fluctuations from the observed O3 time series, we found that variation of O3 in Tianjin was largely driven by the changes in precursors emissions. The meteorology was unfavorable for O3 pollution in period of 2015-2016, and turned out to be favorable during 2017-2021. Specifically, meteorology contributed 9.3 µg/m3 O3 (13%) in 2019, together with the increase in precursors emissions, making 2019 to be the worst year of O3 pollution since 2015. Since then, the favorable effects of meteorology on O3 pollution tended to be weaker. Temperature was the most important factor affecting O3 level, followed by air humidity in O3 pollution season. In the midday of summer days, O3 pollution frequently exceeded the standard level (>160 µg/m3) at a combined condition with relative humidity in 40%-50% and temperature > 31°C. Both the temperature and the dryness of the atmosphere need to be subtly considered for summer O3 forecasting. [Display omitted]