AAAR 36th Annual Conference October 16 - October 20, 2017 Raleigh Convention Center Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Abstract View
Linking Light Absorption Properties to Combustion Efficiency for Individual Residential Woodsmoke Sources
K. Max Zhang, ALEXANDER LI, Wei Xu, Shaojun Zhang, Bo Yang, Khaled Hashad, Jeffrey Sward, George Allen, James Schwab, H. Dirk Felton, Oliver Rattigan, Cornell University
Abstract Number: 676 Working Group: Carbonaceous Aerosols in the Atmosphere
Abstract Woodsmoke resulting from residential wood combustion is a widespread air pollution problem in many parts of the world. We conducted field measurements of real-world residential woodsmoke plumes in Ithaca, NY during the winter 2016-2017 using a 7-wavelength Aethalometer (AE33) modified for high sensitivity for black carbon and brown carbon, multiple nephelometers (Thermo pDR-1500) for PM2.5, and CO2 sensors (Vaisala GMP343). The time resolution of each instrument was set to 1 second to capture the plume dynamics, and raw data were then processed for further analysis. We identified over 30 individual sources, characterized by concurrent, elevated PM2.5 and Delta-C (BC(370nm)-BC(880 am)) values. For each source, we quantified the absorption Angstrom exponents, Delta-C/PM2.5 ratios, black carbon (BC) mass and brown carbon (BrC) mass. In addition, the contributions of BC and BrC to woodsmoke PM were estimated for a woodsmoke source before and after significant improvement in burning practice. The rich dataset allowed us to test the hypothesis that cleaner burns produce more BC and less BrC, and low-oxygen smoldering burns more BrC and less BC.