Abstract View
Health Impacts of Regional Open and Agricultural Fires in Northern South America
KAREN BALLESTEROS, Amy P. Sullivan, Ricardo Morales Betancourt, Universidad de los Andes
Abstract Number: 591
Working Group: Carbonaceous Aerosol
Abstract
Smoke from open biomass burning (BB) significantly deteriorates air quality globally and negatively impacts human health. Exposure to BB smoke has been associated with increased incidence of premature mortality and morbidity outcomes. Recent work indicates a strong correlation between the number of fires in Northern South America (NSA) and smoke tracers such as brown carbon and levoglucosan measured at densely populated areas in Colombia. This suggests there is a strong influence of open BB on the seasonality of air pollution in the region. In this work we used the Weather Research and Forecasting Model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) to estimate the contribution from open BB to excess fine particulates (ΔPM2.5) and quantified short-term effects associated with BB during a peak of fire season in NSA. Three nested modeling domains that cover the northern half of South America at a horizontal resolution of 27, 9, and 3 km, respectively, centered in Colombia (lat. 5.194 – long. -73.522) were used. Aerosols were described with the two-moment sectional aerosol scheme MOSAIC. ΔPM2.5 was quantified by carrying out a sensitivity analysis in which two scenarios were defined. A FIRE scenario including biogenic, anthropogenic, and BB emissions input from the FINN BB emission inventory and a NO_FIRE scenario in which BB were not included. Our simulations results estimate a monthly-mean ΔPM2.5 of 4 µg m-3 over, with a maximum daily mean of 200 µg m-3 in regions near the most intense open BB sources. The corresponding short-term PM2.5-related all-cause, cardiovascular, and respiratory mortality outcomes estimates were calculated using a log-linear concentration-response function (CRF). We also estimated Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) cases due to ΔPM2.5 and calculated the increase in emergency visits associated to respiratory symptoms in the most populated Colombian cities. Results estimated mortality were higher in densely populated areas, especially over Colombia with about 70% of cases in NSA.