Temporal Analysis of Ozone and Nitrogen Oxides Fluctuations at Pasir Gudang, Malaysia

Abstract

Ozone (O 3 ) and nitrogen oxides (NO x ) are closely related in the atmosphere. In ambient air, these pollutants always fluctuated depending on their emission sources and meteorological influences. The paper is aims to gain insight understanding of the monthly temporal variation of O 3 and NO x concentrations to enable proper control strategies against these pollutants. One-year monitoring records from 1 st January to 31 st December 2009 of O 3 and NO x at Pasir Gudang, were obtained from Department of Environmental Malaysia. Temporal analysis of O 3 and NO x concentration fluctuation during annual and monthly were assessed using time series and scatter plots. The annual variations of O 3 concentrations were negatively correlated with annual variation of NO and NO 2 concentrations. Results suggest that NO concentration are higher than O 3 and NO 2 especially in May 2009. However, zero exceedences were recorded in the studied period for all pollutants against the Malaysia Ambient Air Quality Guidelines.