AAAR 33rd Annual Conference
October 20 - October 24, 2014
Rosen Shingle Creek
Orlando, Florida, USA
Abstract View
Lagrangian Photochemical Modeling of Aerosol Evolution in Biomass Burning Plumes
MATTHEW ALVARADO, Chantelle Lonsdale, Robert J. Yokelson, Sheryl K. Akagi, Emily Fischer, Katherine Travis, Jill Craven, Jonathan Taylor, Gavin McMeeking, Ian Burling, Shawn P. Urbanski, Cyle Wold, John Seinfeld, Hugh Coe, David R. Weise, AER
Abstract Number: 237 Working Group: Biomass Burning Aerosol: From Emissions to Impacts
Abstract Biomass burning is a major source of atmospheric trace gases and particles that impact air quality at urban, regional, and global scales. Within minutes after emission, rapid, complex photochemistry within a smoke plume can cause large changes in the concentration, size distribution, composition, and optical properties of fine particles (PM2.5). Being able to understand and simulate this rapid evolution under a wide variety of conditions is thus a critical part of forecasting the impact of these fires on urban and regional air quality. The Aerosol Simulation Program (ASP) has been previously used within a Lagrangian parcel model to simulate the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) and ozone within several African and North American plumes. In this work, we will present ASP simulations of the chemical evolution of a young biomass burning smoke plume sampled over California during the 2009 San Luis Obispo Biomass Burning campaign. We will discuss the sensitivity of the model simulations to uncertainties in the emissions, dilution rate, and gas- and particle-phase chemistry. We will then present our initial work in using the ASP model to develop a sub-grid scale parameterization of the near-source chemistry of biomass burning plumes for use in regional and global air quality models.