scholarly journals Fires in ecosystems and influence on the atmosphere

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Dry Matter ◽  
Carbonaceous Aerosols ◽  
Open Burning ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Air Temperature Anomaly ◽  
Maximal Average ◽  
Aerosol Index

Introduction. Fires in ecosystems, mostly after open burning, affect Ukrainian territory each year causing flora and fauna damage, soil degradation, pollutants emission, which impact air quality and human health. Fires influence the atmosphere by adding burned products and its further direct and indirect effects. Despite majority of fires are open burning, research of forest fire emissions prevail among Ukrainian scientists. Therefore, the study aimed to analyze the influence of all-type fires in Ukrainian ecosystems on substances fluxes to the atmosphere and possible changes of meteorological processes. Data and methodology. The study uses GFED4 data and inventories for analyses of forest and agricultural burned fraction, carbon and dry matter emissions for the period of 1997–2016. Additional data includes absorbed aerosol index derived from OMI (Aura) instrument and ground-based meteorological measurements. Results. Burning fraction indicates the 10 to 30% of area influencing in case of active fires. More than 90% of fires in Ukrainian ecosystems happened on the agricultural lands. The highest trends of active fires appear on the western and northern part of Ukraine, whereas burned fraction on the central territories reached up to 60% decreasing per decade. Most fires happened during two periods: March – April and July – September. The most severe fires occurred in 1999, 2001, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2012. Average emissions in Ukraine vary from 0.2 to 1.0 g·m2·month-1 for carbon and from 0.001 to 0.003 kg·m2·month-1 for dry matter. There are three localizations of huge burning products emissions, where maximal average values reach 1.8 g·m2·month-1 for carbon and 0.005 kg·m2·month-1 for dry matter. The biggest one occurred in the Polissia forest region. Despite the maximal emission from forest fires, open burning results the biggest coverage and air quality deteriorating. Absorbing aerosol index (AAI) could be good indicator of fires in Ukrainian ecosystems and burning products emissions. Overall, AAI with values more than 0.2 correspond to dry matter emissions of 0.005–0.01 kg·m2·month-1. If AAI exceed 0.4 usual dry matter emissions exceed 0.02 kg·m2·month-1. The study finds local scale changes of air temperature and days with precipitation due to huge burning products emissions. In case of monthly average AAI exceed 1.2 during fires events, positive air temperature anomaly at the ground decrease from 0.7 to 0.1°C. The main reason is absorption of solar radiation in the atmosphere. During the next month after intensive fires in ecosystems, days with precipitation have twofold decrease: from 13-14 to 7 days with precipitation more than 0 mm, and from 2-3 to 1 day with precipitation more than 5 mm. The reason might be changes of cloudiness formation due to elevated concentrations of carbonaceous aerosols. The results obtained for atmospheric changes is planned to be verified and compared using online integrated atmospheric modelling.

The impact of wildfires in Ukraine on carbon flux and air quality changes by carbon-containing compounds

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mykhailo Savenets ◽  
Larysa Pysarenko
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Content Increase ◽  
Total Contribution ◽  
Open Burning ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Burned Areas ◽  
Summer Maximum ◽  
The Impact

<p>Wildfires remain among the most challenging problems in Ukraine. Each year numerous cases of open burning contribute to huge carbon emissions and turn into forest fires. Using the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED4), there were studied an average burned fraction in Ukraine, which equals of about 0.2-0.3. 90% of wildfires appeared on agricultural lands. The total contribution to carbon emissions is 0.2-1.0 g·m<sup>2</sup>·month<sup>-1</sup> with the increasing trend of about 1-2 g·m<sup>2</sup>·month<sup>-1</sup> per decade. There are three periods with the highest carbon emissions: April, July-August and September-October. While a summer maximum is corresponding to unfavorable temperature and moisture regimes, the main reason of wildfires in spring and autumn is the agricultural open burning. Based on the Sentinel-5P data, it was found that wildfires significantly change the seasonality of carbon monoxide (CO) variations. If maximal CO content is mainly observed in winter at the end of the heating season, in Ukraine the highest CO values continue to exist in April until the open burning stops and the resulting forest fires are extinguished. Wildfires caused the CO content increase to 4.0–5.0 mol·m<sup>-2</sup> which is comparable to the most polluted Ukrainian industrial cities. As a result, air quality deterioration observed at the distances more than 200 km from the burned areas. Using the Enviro-HIRLAM simulations, there were estimated black carbon (BC) distribution, which showed elevated content within the lowest 3-km layer. BC content reaches 600 ppbm near the active fires, 150 ppbm at the distance up to 100 km and 30 ppbm at the distance of about 200-500 km.</p>

An integrated numerical system to estimate air quality effects of forest fires

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 217 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Miranda
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
World Health ◽  
Plume Dispersion ◽  
Photochemical Pollution ◽  
Meteorological Model ◽  
Atmospheric Flow ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Spread Model ◽  
Smoke Dispersion

Forest fires are an important source of various gases and particles emitted into the atmosphere that may affect the air quality on a local and/or larger scale. Currently, there is a growing awareness that smoke from wildland fires exposes individuals and populations to hazardous air pollutants. In order to understand and to simulate forest fire effects on air quality, several issues should be analysed and integrated: fire progression, fire emissions, atmospheric flow, smoke dispersion and chemical reactions. In spite of the available models to simulate smoke dispersion and the existence of some systems already covering the main questions, there still remains a lack of integration concerning fire progression. Photochemical pollution is also not included in these modelling systems. AIRFIRE is a numerical system, developed to estimate the effects of forest fires on air quality, integrating several components of the problem through the inclusion of different modules, namely the mesoscale meteorological model MEMO, the photochemical model MARS, and the Rothermel fire spread model. The system was applied to simulate plume dispersion from a wildfire that occurred in a coastal area, close to Lisbon city, at the end of September 1991. Results, namely the obtained pollutants concentration fields, point to a significant impact on the local air quality. Obtained wind fields and concentration patterns revealed the presence of sea breezes and also the influence of the fire in the atmospheric flow. Estimated carbon monoxide concentration levels were very high, exceeding the recommended hourly limit value of the World Health Organization, and ozone concentration values pointed to photochemical production.

scholarly journals How emissions uncertainty influences the distribution and radiative impacts of smoke from fires in North America

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 2073-2097 ◽  
Author(s):  
Therese S. Carter ◽  
Colette L. Heald ◽  
Jose L. Jimenez ◽  
Pedro Campuzano-Jost ◽  
Yutaka Kondo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
North America ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Dry Matter ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Carbonaceous Aerosol ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Emission Inventories ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Radiative Impacts

Abstract. Fires and the aerosols that they emit impact air quality, health, and climate, but the abundance and properties of carbonaceous aerosol (both black carbon and organic carbon) from biomass burning (BB) remain uncertain and poorly constrained. We aim to explore the uncertainties associated with fire emissions and their air quality and radiative impacts from underlying dry matter consumed and emissions factors. To investigate this, we compare model simulations from a global chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem, driven by a variety of fire emission inventories with surface and airborne observations of black carbon (BC) and organic aerosol (OA) concentrations and satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD). We focus on two fire-detection-based and/or burned-area-based (FD-BA) inventories using burned area and active fire counts, respectively, i.e., the Global Fire Emissions Database version 4 (GFED4s) with small fires and the Fire INventory from NCAR version 1.5 (FINN1.5), and two fire radiative power (FRP)-based approaches, i.e., the Quick Fire Emission Dataset version 2.4 (QFED2.4) and the Global Fire Assimilation System version 1.2 (GFAS1.2). We show that, across the inventories, emissions of BB aerosol (BBA) differ by a factor of 4 to 7 over North America and that dry matter differences, not emissions factors, drive this spread. We find that simulations driven by QFED2.4 generally overestimate BC and, to a lesser extent, OA concentrations observations from two fire-influenced aircraft campaigns in North America (ARCTAS and DC3) and from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network, while simulations driven by FINN1.5 substantially underestimate concentrations. The GFED4s and GFAS1.2-driven simulations provide the best agreement with OA and BC mass concentrations at the surface (IMPROVE), BC observed aloft (DC3 and ARCTAS), and AOD observed by MODIS over North America. We also show that a sensitivity simulation including an enhanced source of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from fires, based on the NOAA Fire Lab 2016 experiments, produces substantial additional OA; however, the spread in the primary emissions estimates implies that this magnitude of SOA can be neither confirmed nor ruled out when comparing the simulations against the observations explored here. Given the substantial uncertainty in fire emissions, as represented by these four emission inventories, we find a sizeable range in 2012 annual BBA PM2.5 population-weighted exposure over Canada and the contiguous US (0.5 to 1.6 µg m−3). We also show that the range in the estimated global direct radiative effect of carbonaceous aerosol from fires (−0.11 to −0.048 W m−2) is large and comparable to the direct radiative forcing of OA (−0.09 W m−2) estimated in the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Our analysis suggests that fire emissions uncertainty challenges our ability to accurately characterize the impact of smoke on air quality and climate.

Particulate emissions from fires in central Siberian Scots pine forests

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 (9) ◽  
pp. 2207-2217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri N Samsonov ◽  
Konstantin P Koutsenogii ◽  
V I Makarov ◽  
Andrey V Ivanov ◽  
Valery A Ivanov ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Scots Pine ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Ground Surface ◽  
Particulate Emissions ◽  
Total Biomass ◽  
Carbonaceous Aerosols ◽  
Particulate Emission ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Aerosol Mass ◽  
Forest Sites

Siberian boreal forest fires burn large areas annually, resulting in smoke that releases large amounts of particulate emission into the atmosphere. We sampled aerosol emissions from experimental fires on three Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) forest sites of central Siberia. Emissions from ground-based aerosol samples were 0.1–0.7 t/ha. This value represented 1%–7% of the total biomass (10–30 t/ha) consumed during the experimental fires. We were able to classify the chemical composition of 77%–90% of the mass of particulate fire emissions. Chemical analysis indicated that an average of 8%–17% of the particulate composition was of mineral origin. Carbonaceous aerosols created because of incomplete combustion ranged from 50% to 70% of the total aerosol mass. The fraction of aerosols containing elemental carbon (EC) (i.e., graphite, soot, and charcoal) was 7%–15%. As our samples were taken near the ground surface, these results represent freshly emitted fire aerosols that have not yet had time to react with atmospheric moisture or to undergo postfire chemical or physical–chemical changes. In a typical year, where 12 × 106 – 14 × 106 ha burn in Russia, we estimate that 3 × 106 – 10 × 106 t of particulate matter may be emitted into the atmosphere.

Towards an improved understanding of nitrogen dioxide emissions from forest fires 

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debora Griffin ◽  
Jack Chan ◽  
Enrico Dammers ◽  
Chris McLinden ◽  
Cristen Adams ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Synthetic Data ◽  
Estimation Methods ◽  
Wind Fields ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Vertical Column ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Direct Emission

<p>Smoke from wildfires are a significant source of air pollution, which can adversely impact ecosystems and the air quality in downwind populated areas. With increasing severity of wildfires over the years, these are a significant threat to air quality in densely populated areas. Emissions from wildfires are most commonly estimated by a bottom-up approach, using proxies such fuel type, burn area, and emission factors. Emissions are also commonly derived with a top-down approach, using satellite observed Fire Radiative Power. Furthermore, wildfire emissions can also be estimated directly from satellite-borne measurements.</p><p>Here, we present advancements and improvements of direct emission estimates of forest fire NO<sub>x</sub> emissions by using TROPOMI (Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument) high-resolution satellite datasets, including NO<sub>2</sub> vertical column densities (VCDs) and information on plume height and aerosol scattering.  The effect of smoke aerosols on the sensitivity of TROPOMI to NO<sub>2 </sub>(via air mass factors) is estimated with recalculated VCDs, and validated with aircraft observations. Different top-down emission estimation methods are tested on synthetic data to determine the accuracy, and the sensitivity to parameters, such as wind fields, satellite sampling, instrument noise, NO<sub>2</sub>:NO<sub>x</sub> conversion ratio, species atmosphere lifetime and plume spread. Lastly, the top-down, bottom-up and direct emission estimates of fire emissions are quantitatively compared.</p>

scholarly journals Forest-fire aerosol–weather feedbacks over western North America using a high-resolution, online coupled air-quality model

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (13) ◽  
pp. 10557-10587
Author(s):  
Paul A. Makar ◽  
Ayodeji Akingunola ◽  
Jack Chen ◽  
Balbir Pabla ◽  
Wanmin Gong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Forest Fire ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Cloud Droplet ◽  
Plume Rise ◽  
Air Quality Model ◽  
Quality Model ◽  
Fire Plume ◽  
Fire Emissions

Abstract. The influence of both anthropogenic and forest-fire emissions, and their subsequent chemical and physical processing, on the accuracy of weather and air-quality forecasts, was studied using a high-resolution, online coupled air-quality model. Simulations were carried out for the period 4 July through 5 August 2019, at 2.5 km horizontal grid cell size, over a 2250×3425 km2 domain covering western Canada and USA, prior to the use of the forecast system as part of the FIREX-AQ ensemble forecast. Several large forest fires took place in the Canadian portion of the domain during the study period. A feature of the implementation was the incorporation of a new online version of the Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System (CFFEPSv4.0). This inclusion of thermodynamic forest-fire plume-rise calculations directly into the online air-quality model allowed us to simulate the interactions between forest-fire plume development and weather. Incorporating feedbacks resulted in weather forecast performance that exceeded or matched the no-feedback forecast, at greater than 90 % confidence, at most times and heights in the atmosphere. The feedback forecast outperformed the feedback forecast at 35 out of 48 statistical evaluation scores, for PM2.5, NO2, and O3. Relative to the climatological cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and aerosol optical properties used in the no-feedback simulations, the online coupled model's aerosol indirect and direct effects were shown to result in feedback loops characterized by decreased surface temperatures in regions affected by forest-fire plumes, decreases in stability within the smoke plume, increases in stability further aloft, and increased lower troposphere cloud droplet and raindrop number densities. The aerosol direct and indirect effect reduced oceanic cloud droplet number densities and increased oceanic raindrop number densities, relative to the no-feedback climatological simulation. The aerosol direct and indirect effects were responsible for changes to the near-surface PM2.5 and NO2 concentrations at greater than the 90 % confidence level near the forest fires, with O3 changes remaining below the 90 % confidence level. The simulations show that incorporating aerosol direct and indirect effect feedbacks can significantly improve the accuracy of weather and air-quality forecasts and that forest-fire plume-rise calculations within an online coupled model change the predicted fire plume dispersion and emissions, the latter through changing the meteorology driving fire intensity and fuel consumption.

scholarly journals How emissions uncertainty influences the distribution and radiative impacts of smoke from fires in North America

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Therese S. Carter ◽  
Colette L. Heald ◽  
Jose L. Jimenez ◽  
Pedro Campuzano-Jost ◽  
Yutaka Kondo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
North America ◽  
Black Carbon ◽  
Dry Matter ◽  
Organic Aerosol ◽  
Carbonaceous Aerosol ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Emission Inventories ◽  
Fire Emissions ◽  
Radiative Impacts

Abstract. Fires and the aerosols that they emit impact air quality, health, and climate, but the abundance and properties of carbonaceous aerosol (both black carbon and organic carbon) from biomass burning (BB) remain uncertain and poorly constrained. We aim to quantify the uncertainties associated with fire emissions and their air quality and radiative impacts from underlying dry matter consumed and emissions factors. To explore this, we compare model simulations from a global chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem, driven by a variety of fire emission inventories with surface and airborne observations of black carbon (BC) and organic aerosol (OA) concentrations and satellite-derived aerosol optical depth (AOD). We focus on two fire detection/burned area-based (FD/BA) inventories using burned area and active fire counts, respectively: the Global Fire Emissions Database version 4 (GFED4s) with small fires and the Fire INventory from NCAR version 1.5 (FINN1.5) and two fire radiative power (FRP)-based approaches: the Quick Fire Emission Dataset version 2.4 (QFED2.4) and the Global Fire Assimilation System version 1.2 (GFAS1.2). We show that, across the inventories, emissions of BB aerosol (BBA) differ by a factor of 4 to 7 over North America and that dry matter differences, not emissions factors, drive this spread. We find that simulations driven by QFED2.4 generally overestimate BC and, to a lesser extent, OA concentrations observations from two fire-influenced aircraft campaigns in North America (ARCTAS and DC3) and from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network, while simulations driven by FINN1.5 substantially underestimate concentrations. The GFED4s and GFAS1.2-driven simulations provide the best agreement with OA and BC mass concentrations at the surface (IMPROVE), BC observed aloft (DC3 and ARCTAS), and AOD observed by MODIS over North America. We also show that a sensitivity simulation including an enhanced source of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from fires based on the NOAA Fire Lab 2016 experiments produces substantial additional OA; however, the spread in the primary emissions estimates implies that this magnitude of SOA cannot be either confirmed or ruled out when comparing the simulations against the observations explored here. Given the substantial uncertainty in fire emissions, as represented by these four emission inventories, we find a sizeable range in BBA population-weighted exposure over Canada and the contiguous United States (0.5 to 1.6 µg m−3). We also show that the range in the estimated global direct radiative effect of carbonaceous aerosol from fires (−0.11 to −0.048 W m−2) is large and comparable to the direct radiative forcing of OA (−0.09 W m−2) estimated in AR5. Our analysis suggests that fire emissions uncertainty challenges our ability to accurately characterize the impact of smoke on air quality and climate.

Innovative Technology Development for Comprehensive Air Quality Characterization from Open Burning

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byung J. Kim ◽  
Michael R. Kemme ◽  
Brian K. Gullett ◽  
Ryan K. Williams ◽  
Johanna M. Aurell
Keyword(s):  
Air Quality ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Innovative Technology ◽  
Open Burning

scholarly journals Water Supply and Temperature Effects on Some Nutritive Constituents of Direct Sown Onion

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 245-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Attila OMBÓDI ◽  
Andrea LUGASI ◽  
Hussein Gehad DAOOD ◽  
Mária BERKI ◽  
Lajos HELYES
Keyword(s):  
Water Supply ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Dry Matter ◽  
Nutrient Content ◽  
Matter Content ◽  
Dry Matter Content ◽  
Strong Positive Correlation ◽  
Dry Matter Partitioning ◽  
Nutritive Quality ◽  
Dry Conditions

Irrigation is a prerequisite for economical onion production under dry conditions. However, its effect on dry matter and nutrient content often remains a concern for growers. A direct sown onion hybrid was grown under open field, rain-fed and irrigated conditions for three years, investigating the effects of air temperature and water supply on some nutritive constituents. Dry matter, storage sugar, total flavonol and total polyphenol content showed strong positive correlation with average air temperature and negative correlation with water supply. However, irrigation had a positive effect on storage sugar and dry matter content. Presumably better water supply during dry periods ensured by irrigation provided the basis for higher photosynthetic production, and hereby more dry matter partitioning and accumulation in the bulb, a storage organ. An unexpected decrease in vitamin C content was experienced in 2011 and 2012, compared to the result of 2010, which was explained by the hot and dry conditions of the pre-harvest irrigation cut-off period. Fibre and ash content was found to be the most stable nutritional characteristics, affected neither by the environmental conditions, nor by the irrigation. Irrigation has proved to be very beneficial for direct sown onion, doubling bulb yield while not affecting the nutritive quality negatively.

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