American Association for Aerosol Research - Abstract Submission

AAAR 37th Annual Conference
October 14 - October 18, 2019
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA

Abstract View


Simulating the Near-Source Forest Fire Plume Chemistry and Secondary Particle Formation Using SAM-ASP

Chantelle Lonsdale, MATTHEW ALVARADO, Anna Hodshire, Emily Ramnarine, Jeffrey R. Pierce, AER

     Abstract Number: 283
     Working Group: Biomass Combustion: Emissions, Chemistry, Air Quality, Climate, and Human Health

Abstract
Biomass burning is a major source of trace gases and aerosols that impact health, air quality and the climate. Three-dimensional Eulerian chemical transport models use estimates of the primary emissions from fires and can unphysically mix them across large-scale grid boxes, leading to incorrect estimates of the impact of biomass burning on health, air quality and the climate. Plume-scale process models allow for the examination of the chemical and physical transformations of trace gases and aerosols within biomass burning smoke plumes and to develop parameterizations of this aging process for coarser grid-scale models. Here we describe the coupled SAM-ASP plume-scale process model, which consists of coupling the Aerosol Simulation Program (ASP) with the large-eddy simulation model, System for Atmospheric Modelling (SAM). SAM-ASP is an advancement on ASP in that the plume turbulent mixing is calculated by SAM and allows the study of how the chemistry within the smoke plume changes vertically and horizontally. SAM-ASP calculates the oxidant concentrations for SOA chemistry using a fully interactive photochemical model rather than being specified at fixed concentrations. We show that the SAM-ASP model is able to correctly simulate the dilution of CO in a California chaparral smoke plume, as well as the chemical loss of NOx, HONO, and NH3 within the plume and the formation of PAN and O3.