<p>Surface ozone (O₃) substantially and adversely impacts public health and ecosystems. Despite China’s air quality improvements, pre-2013 ozone records in central-eastern China (CEC) remain scarce. To address this temporal gap, we constructed a 0.5° resolution daily maximum 8-h average (MDA8) ozone concentration dataset spanning 1980–2012 by employing a light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM, LGBM) model based on multisource datasets. Tenfold cross-validation (2013–2023) demonstrated robust spatiotemporal reconstruction capability, with 88% of grids exhibiting correlation coefficients (R²) &gt; 0.8 versus observations (42% exceeding 0.9) and root mean square errors (RMSE) of 7.5–7.9 μg⋅m⁻³. The reconstructed climatology revealed a regional mean of 87.6 μg⋅m⁻³ with a north-south gradient and significant annual increase (0.14 μg⋅m⁻³⋅yr⁻¹, p &lt; 0.01). μg⋅m⁻³ Mechanistic attribution identified synergistic forcing from global warming (0.32 °C decade⁻¹), industrial expansion, and urbanization-induced emission growth as primary drivers of long-term ozone elevation. The LightGBM-reconstructed dataset exhibits exceptional stability (interannual variability &lt; 5%), providing critical baseline data for quantifying multidecadal ozone pollution–climate interactions and informing regional air quality management strategies.</p>