TY - JOUR
T1 - Analysis of aerosol composition data for western United States wildfires between 2005 and 2015
T2 - Dust emissions, chloride depletion, and most enhanced aerosol constituents
AU - Schlosser, Joseph S.
AU - Braun, Rachel A.
AU - Bradley, Trevor
AU - Dadashazar, Hossein
AU - MacDonald, Alexander B.
AU - Aldhaif, Abdulmonam A.
AU - Aghdam, Mojtaba Azadi
AU - Mardi, Ali Hossein
AU - Xian, Peng
AU - Sorooshian, Armin
N1 - Funding Information:
All IMPROVE, NASA, and NAAPS data used can be obtained from websites provided in section 2, while FASE and NiCE data can be obtained from the corresponding author. This work was funded by grant 2 P42 ES04940 from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Superfund Research Program and ONR grants N00014-16-1-2567 and N00014-10-1-0811. We acknowledge the use of data and imagery from LANCE FIRMS operated by the NASA/GSFC/Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) with funding provided by NASA/HQ. We acknowledge Agilent Technologies for their support and Shane Snyder’s laboratories for ICP-MS data. IMPROVE is a collaborative association of state, tribal, and federal agencies and international partners. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the primary funding source, with contracting and research support from the National Park Service. The Air Quality Group at the University of California, Davis, is the central analytical laboratory, with ion analysis provided by Research Triangle Institute and carbon analysis provided by Desert Research Institute.
Publisher Copyright:
©2017. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
PY - 2017/8/27
Y1 - 2017/8/27
N2 - This study examines major wildfires in the western United States between 2005 and 2015 to determine which species exhibit the highest percent change in mass concentration on day of peak fire influence relative to preceding nonfire days. Forty-one fires were examined using the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) data set. Organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) constituents exhibited the highest percent change increase. The sharpest enhancements were for the volatile (OC1) and semivolatile (OC2) OC fractions, suggestive of secondary organic aerosol formation during plume transport. Of the noncarbonaceous constituents, Cl, P, K, NO3 −, and Zn levels exhibited the highest percent change. Dust was significantly enhanced in wildfire plumes, based on significant enhancements in fine soil components (i.e., Si, Ca, Al, Fe, and Ti) and PMcoarse (i.e., PM10–PM2.5). A case study emphasized how transport of wildfire plumes significantly impacted downwind states, with higher levels of fine soil and PMcoarse at the downwind state (Arizona) as compared to the source of the fires (California). A global model (Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System, NAAPS) did not capture the dust influence over California or Arizona during this case event because it is not designed to resolve dust dynamics in fires, which motivates improved treatment of such processes. Significant chloride depletion was observed on the peak EC day for almost a half of the fires examined. Size-resolved measurements during two specific fires at a coastal California site revealed significant chloride reductions for particle aerodynamic diameters between 1 and 10 μm.
AB - This study examines major wildfires in the western United States between 2005 and 2015 to determine which species exhibit the highest percent change in mass concentration on day of peak fire influence relative to preceding nonfire days. Forty-one fires were examined using the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) data set. Organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) constituents exhibited the highest percent change increase. The sharpest enhancements were for the volatile (OC1) and semivolatile (OC2) OC fractions, suggestive of secondary organic aerosol formation during plume transport. Of the noncarbonaceous constituents, Cl, P, K, NO3 −, and Zn levels exhibited the highest percent change. Dust was significantly enhanced in wildfire plumes, based on significant enhancements in fine soil components (i.e., Si, Ca, Al, Fe, and Ti) and PMcoarse (i.e., PM10–PM2.5). A case study emphasized how transport of wildfire plumes significantly impacted downwind states, with higher levels of fine soil and PMcoarse at the downwind state (Arizona) as compared to the source of the fires (California). A global model (Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System, NAAPS) did not capture the dust influence over California or Arizona during this case event because it is not designed to resolve dust dynamics in fires, which motivates improved treatment of such processes. Significant chloride depletion was observed on the peak EC day for almost a half of the fires examined. Size-resolved measurements during two specific fires at a coastal California site revealed significant chloride reductions for particle aerodynamic diameters between 1 and 10 μm.
KW - IMPROVE
KW - NAAPS
KW - biomass burning
KW - chloride depletion
KW - dust
KW - organic aerosol
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85028403280&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85028403280&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/2017JD026547
DO - 10.1002/2017JD026547
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85028403280
VL - 122
SP - 8951
EP - 8966
JO - Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
JF - Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres
SN - 2169-897X
IS - 16
ER -