AAAR 37th Annual Conference October 14 - October 18, 2019 Oregon Convention Center Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Emissions, Transport, and Chemistry of Smoke from Western U.S. Wildfires
MEGAN BELA, Natalie Kille, Stuart McKeen, Ravan Ahmadov, Gabriel Pereira, Chris Schmidt, R. Bradley Pierce, Susan O'Neill, Xiaoyang Zhang, Shobha Kondragunta, Christine Wiedinmyer, Rainer Volkamer, CU CIRES and NOAA ESRL
Abstract Number: 589 Working Group: Biomass Combustion: Emissions, Chemistry, Air Quality, Climate, and Human Health
Abstract Air quality forecasts using regional chemical models provide key information for affected communities and smoke management efforts, yet many models fail to accurately predict ozone (O3) and particulate matter levels during fire events. The satellite-based emissions and plume rise are large sources of model uncertainty. To improve emissions and plume rise parameterizations, we utilize aircraft and ground-based data from recent field campaigns, such as the 2018 NSF/CU Biomass Burning Fluxes of Trace Gases and Aerosols using SOF on the Wyoming King Air (BB-FLUX) and NSF/CSU Western wildfire Experiment for Cloud chemistry, Aerosol absorption and Nitrogen (WE-CAN) field campaigns, and the 2019 NOAA/NASA Fire Influence on Regional and Global Environments Experiment – Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field campaign. Hourly fire emissions based on Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-16/17 fire radiative power are implemented in WRF-Chem. Emission factors (EFs) are updated from estimates from FIREX Fire Lab and BB-FLUX/WE-CAN/FIREX-AQ field observations, and separate EFs are implemented for flaming and smoldering combustion. Uncertainties in emissions and plume injection heights in the model are quantified by comparison with aircraft- and satellite-based estimates. WRF-Chem simulations are also compared with satellite retrievals of trace gases and aerosols, and are used to quantify fire air quality impacts and examine formation/aging mechanisms for O3 and SOA.