The European summer of 2003 was characterised by intense heat, prolonged isolation and suppressed ventilation of the boundary layer which, combined with large anthropogenic emissions and strong fires, resulted in a build up of an unprecedentedly high and long-lasting photochemical smog over large parts of the continent. In this work, a global chemistry and transport model GEOS-Chern is compared with surface O-3 concentrations observed in 2003 in order to examine the extent to which the model is capable of reproducing such an extreme event. The GEOS-Chem reproduces the temporal variation of O-3 at the Jungfraujoch mountain site, Switzerland, including the enhanced concentrations associated with the August 2003 heat wave (r = 0.84). The spatial distribution of the enhanced surface O-3 over Spain, France, Germany and Italy is also captured to some extent (r = 0.63), although the largest concentrations appear to be located over the Italian Peninsula in the model rather than over Central Europe as suggested by the surface O-3 observations. In general, the observed differences between the European averaged O-3 concentrations in the summer of 2003 to those in 2004 are larger in the observations than in the model, as the model reproduces relatively well the enhanced levels in 2003 but overestimates those observed in 2004. Preliminary contributions of various sources to the O-3 surface concentrations over Europe during the heat wave indicate that anthropogenic emissions from Europe contribute the most to the O-3 build up near the surface (40 to 50%, i.e. 30 ppb). The contribution from anthropogenic emissions from the other major source regions of the northern hemisphere, in particular North America, tends to be smaller than those of other years. The model indicates that the large fires that occurred in that year contributed up to 5% (3 ppb) to surface O-3 in close proximity to the fire regions and less elsewhere in Europe. Biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by grass and forest areas contributed up to 10% (5-6 ppb) of surface O-3 over France, Germany and northern Italy, which represents a contribution that is twice as large than that found in 2004. These results in terms of contributions from various sources, particularly biogenic emissions, should be seen as preliminary, as the response of vegetation to such extreme events may not be well represented in the model.