10th International Aerosol Conference
September 2 - September 7, 2018
America's Center Convention Complex
St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Abstract View


The Ubiquity of Biomass Burning Particles in the Remote Troposphere

GREGORY SCHILL, Karl D. Froyd, Daniel Murphy, Agnieszka Kupc, Christina Williamson, Charles Brock, Huisheng Bian, Mian Chin, Peter Colarco, NOAA ESRL and CIRES, University of Colorado Boulder

     Abstract Number: 1044
     Working Group: Carbonaceous Aerosol

Abstract
It has been shown that natural aerosols provide a large contribution to uncertainty in indirect forcing, largely because forcings are referenced to the preindustrial state. Since direct measurements of preindustrial aerosol are lacking, a sound understanding of aerosol chemical and physical processes are imperative to reducing this uncertainty. Of these natural aerosol, biomass burning particles may be particularly important. Currently, the emission, transport, and removal of biomass burning particles to/from the remote troposphere is poorly constrained due to a dearth of in-situ observations.

In this work, we report measurements of biomass burning particles abundance during the Atmospheric Tomography (ATom) mission. During ATom, nearly continuous profiles of aerosol composition were measured by Particle Analysis by Laser Mass Spectrometry (PALMS) from approximately 150 m to 12000 m, primarily over the remote ocean. Producing the first global map of biomass burning aerosol, we find that biomass burning particles make up approximately 1/3 of the aerosol number and 1/5 of the aerosol mass in the remote troposphere. PALMS-derived mass concentrations were compared to global climate model outputs from GEOS-5 using a bulk aerosol microphysical scheme and QFED fire emissions. Sensitivity studies were conducted to determine which processes drive biomass burning particle abundance in the remote troposphere. We then explore the origins of biomass burning in the remote troposphere, and assess the importance of biomass burning particles as fire seasons extend in a warming climate.