References

ACP

Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

ACP

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

1680-7324

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/acp-10-5739-2010

Estimated total emissions of trace gases from the Canberra Wildfires of 2003: a new method using satellite measurements of aerosol optical depth & the MOZART chemical transport model

Paton-Walsh

¹ Emmons

L. K.

² Wilson

S. R.

School of Chemistry, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia

National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA

30 06 2010

10 12 5739 5748

2010

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/10/5739/2010/acp-10-5739-2010.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/10/5739/2010/acp-10-5739-2010.pdf

In this paper we describe a new method for estimating trace gas emissions from large vegetation fires using satellite measurements of aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 550 nm, combined with an atmospheric chemical transport model. The method uses a threshold value to screen out normal levels of AOD that may be caused by raised dust, sea salt aerosols or diffuse smoke transported from distant fires. Using this method we infer an estimated total emission of 15±5 Tg of carbon monoxide, 0.05±0.02 Tg of hydrogen cyanide, 0.11±0.03 Tg of ammonia, 0.25±0.07 Tg of formaldehyde, 0.03±0.01 of acetylene, 0.10±0.03 Tg of ethylene, 0.03±0.01 Tg of ethane, 0.21±0.06 Tg of formic acid and 0.28±0.09 Tg of methanol released to the atmosphere from the Canberra fires of 2003. An assessment of the uncertainties in the new method is made and we show that our estimate agrees (within expected uncertainties) with estimates made using current conventional methods of multiplying together factors for the area burned, fuel load, the combustion efficiency and the emission factor for carbon monoxide. A simpler estimate derived directly from the satellite AOD measurements is also shown to be in agreement with conventional estimates, suggesting that the method may, under certain meteorological conditions, be applied without the complication of using a chemical transport model. The new method is suitable for estimating emissions from distinct large fire episodes and although it has some significant uncertainties, these are largely independent of the uncertainties inherent in conventional techniques. Thus we conclude that the new method is a useful additional tool for characterising emissions from vegetation fires.

References 1

Andreae, M. O. and Merlet, P.: Emission of trace gases and aerosols from biomass burning, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 15, 955–966, 2001.

Arellano, A. F., Kasibhatla, P. S., Giglio, L., van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., and Collatz, G. J.: Time-dependent inversion estimates of global biomass-burning CO emissions using Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) measurements, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 111, D09303, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005jd006613, 2006.

Chin, M., Ginoux, P., Kinne, S., Torres, O., Holben, B. N., Duncan, B. N., Martin, R. V., Logan, J. A., Higurashi, A., and Nakajima, T.: Tropospheric aerosol optical thickness from the GOCART model and comparisons with satellite and Sun photometer measurements, J. Atmos. Sci., 59, 461–483, 2002.

Chu, D. A., Kaufman, Y. J., Remer, L. A., and Holben, B. N.: Remote sensing of smoke from MODIS airborne simulator during the SCAR-B experiment, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 103, 31979–31987, 1998.

Edwards, D. P., Emmons, L. K., Gille, J. C., Chu, A., Attie, J. L., Giglio, L., Wood, S. W., Haywood, J., Deeter, M. N., Massie, S. T., Ziskin, D. C., and Drummond, J. R.: Satellite-observed pollution from Southern Hemisphere biomass burning, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 111, 17, D14312, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005jd006655, 2006a.

Edwards, D. P., Petron, G., Novelli, P. C., Emmons, L. K., Gille, J. C., and Drummond, J. R.: Southern Hemisphere carbon monoxide interannual variability observed by Terra/Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT), J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 111, 9, D16303, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006jd007079, 2006b.

Emmons, L. K., Walters, S., Hess, P. G., Lamarque, J. F., Pfister, G. G., Fillmore, D., Granier, C., Guenther, A., Kinnison, D., Laepple, T., Orlando, J., Tie, X., Tyndall, G., Wiedinmyer, C., Baughcum, S. L., and Kloster, S.: Description and evaluation of the Model for Ozone and Related chemical Tracers, version 4 (MOZART-4), Geosci. Model Dev., 3, 43–67, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-3-43-2010, 2010.

Fromm, M., Tupper, A., Rosenfeld, D., Servranckx, R., and McRae, R.: Violent pyro-convective storm devastates Australia's capital and pollutes the stratosphere, Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, 2006.

Hoelzemann, J. J., Schultz, M. G., Brasseur, G. P., Granier, C., and Simon, M.: Global Wildland Fire Emission Model (GWEM): Evaluating the use of global area burnt satellite data, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D14S04, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JD003666, 2004.

Hurst, D. F., Griffith, D. W. T., Carras, J. N., Williams, D. J., and Fraser, P. J.: Measurements of trace gases emitted by Australian savanna fires during the 1990 dry season, J. Atmos. Chem., 18, 33–56, 1994.

Ito, A. and Penner, J. E.: Global estimates of biomass burning emissions based on satellite imagery for the year 2000, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 109, 18, D14S05, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003jd004423, 2004.

Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kistler, R., Collins, W., Deaven, D., Gandin, L., Iredell, M., Saha, S., White, G., Woollen, J., Zhu, Y., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Higgins, W., Janowiak, J., Mo, K. C., Ropelewski, C., Wang, J., Leetmaa, A., Reynolds, R., Jenne, R., and Joseph, D.: The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project, B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 77, 437–471, 1996.

Kasischke, E. S. and Penner, J. E.: Improving global estimates of atmospheric emissions from biomass burning, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 109(9), D14S01, https://doi.org/10.1029/2004jd004972, 2004.

Kaufman, Y. J., Tucker, C. J., and Fung, I.: Remote Sensing of Biomass Burning in The Tropics., Journal of Geophysical Research, 95, 9927-9939, 1990.

Kaufman, Y. J.: Aerosol Optical-Thickness and Atmospheric Path Radiance, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 98, 2677–2692, 1993.

Kaufman, Y. J., Tanre, D., Gordon, H. R., Nakajima, T., Lenoble, J., Frouin, R., Grassl, H., Herman, B. M., King, M. D., and Teillet, P. M.: Passive remote sensing of tropospheric aerosol and atmospheric correction for the aerosol effect, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 102, 16815–16830, 1997.

Kaufman, Y. J., Justice, C. O., Flynn, L. P., Kendall, J. D., Prins, E. M., Giglio, L., Ward, D. E., Menzel, W. P., and Setzer, A. W.: Potential global fire monitoring from EOS-MODIS, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 103, 32215–32238, 1998.

Kaufman, Y. J., Haywood, J. M., Hobbs, P. V., Hart, W., Kleidman, R., and Schmid, B.: Remote sensing of vertical distributions of smoke aerosol off the coast of Africa, Geophys. Res. Lett., 30, 1831, 713PT, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003GL017068 2003.

King, M. D., Kaufman, Y. J., Tanré, D., and Nakajima, T.: Remote sensing of tropospheric aerosols from space: past, present and future., B. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 80, 2229–2259, 1999.

Kleidman, R. G., O'Neill, N. T., Remer, L. A., Kaufman, Y. J., Eck, T. F., Tanre, D., Dubovik, O., and Holben, B. N.: Comparison of moderate resolution Imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) and aerosol robotic network (AERONET) remote-sensing retrievals of aerosol fine mode fraction over ocean, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 110, D22205, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JD005760, 2005.

Levy, R. C., Remer, L. A., Mattoo, S., Vermote, E. F., and Kaufman, Y. J.: Second-generation operational algorithm: Retrieval of aerosol properties over land from inversion of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer spectral reflectance, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 112, D13211, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JD007811, 2007.

Paton-Walsh, C., Jones, N., Wilson, S., Meier, A., Deutscher, N., Griffith, D., Mitchell, R., and Campbell, S.: Trace gas emissions from biomass burning inferred from aerosol optical depth, Geophys. Res. Lett., 31, L05116, https://doi.org/10.1029/2003GL018973 2004.

Paton-Walsh, C., Jones, N. B., Wilson, S. R., Haverd, V., Meier, A., Griffith, D. W. T., and Rinsland, C. P.: Measurements of trace gas emissions from Australian forest fires and correlations with coincident measurements of aerosol optical depth, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 110, D24305, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JD006202, 2005.

Paton-Walsh, C., Wilson, S. R., Jones, N. B., and Griffith, D. W. T.: Measurement of methanol emissions from Australian wildfires by ground-based solar Fourier transform spectroscopy, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L08810, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL032951 2008.

Paton-Walsh, C., Emmons, L. K., and Wiedinmyer, C.: Australia's 2009 "Black Saturday" Wildfires – Emissions of Trace Gases to the Atmosphere, Geophys. Res. Lett., in preparation, 2010.

Pfister, G., Hess, P. G., Emmons, L. K., Lamarque, J. F., Wiedinmyer, C., Edwards, D. P., Petron, G., Gille, J. C., and Sachse, G. W.: Quantifying CO emissions from the 2004 Alaskan wildfires using MOPITT CO data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L11809, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005gl022995, 2005.

Radhi, M., Box, M. A., Box, G. P., Gupta, P., and Christopher, S. A.: Evolution of the optical properties of biomass-burning aerosol during the 2003 southeast Australian bushfires, Appl. Optics, 48, 1764–1773, 2009.

Rasch, P. J., Feichter, J., Law, K., Mahowald, N., Penner, J., Benkovitz, C., Genthon, C., Giannakopoulos, C., Kasibhatla, P., Koch, D., Levy, H., Maki, T., Prather, M., Roberts, D. L., Roelofs, G. J., Stevenson, D., Stockwell, Z., Taguchi, S., Kritz, M., Chipperfield, M., Baldocchi, D., McMurry, P., Barrie, L., Balkansi, Y., Chatfield, R., Kjellstrom, E., Lawrence, M., Lee, H. N., Lelieveld, J., Noone, K. J., Seinfeld, J., Stenchikov, G., Schwartz, S., Walcek, C., and Williamson, D.: A comparison of scavenging and deposition processes in global models: results from the WCRP Cambridge Workshop of 1995, Tellus Ser. B-Chem. Phys. Meteorol., 52, 1025–1056, 2000.

Remer, L. A., Tanré, D., Kaufman, Y. J., Ichoku, C., Mattoo, S., Levy, R., Chu, D., Holben, B., Dubovik, O., Smirnov, A., Martins, J. V., Li, R.-R., and Ahmad, Z.: Validation of MODIS aerosol retrieval over ocean, Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 8008(1618), https://doi.org/10.1029/2001GL013204, 2002.

Remer, L. A., Kaufman, Y. J., Tanre, D., Mattoo, S., Chu, D. A., Martins, J. V., Li, R. R., Ichoku, C., Levy, R. C., Kleidman, R. G., Eck, T. F., Vermote, E., and Holben, B. N.: The MODIS aerosol algorithm, products, and validation, J. Atmos. Sci., 62, 947–973, 2005.

Rinsland, C. P., Paton-Walsh, C., Jones, N. B., Griffith, D. W. T., Goldman, A., Wood, S. W., Chiou, L., and Meier, A.: High spectral resolution solar absorption measurements of ethylene (C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>) in a forest fire smoke plume using HITRAN parameters: Tropospheric vertical profile retrieval, J. Quant. Spectrosc. Rad. Trans., 301–309, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jqsrt.2005.03.003, 2005.

Schultz, M. G., Heil, A., Hoelzemann, J. J., Spessa, A., Thonicke, K., Goldammer, J. G., Held, A. C., Pereira, J. M. C., and van het Bolscher, M.: Global wildland fire emissions from 1960 to 2000, Global Biogeochem. Cy., 22(17), Gb2002, https://doi.org/10.1029/2007gb003031, 2008.

Singh, H. B., Brune, W. H., Crawford, J. H., Jacob, D. J., and Russell, P. B.: Overview of the summer 2004 intercontinental chemical transport experiment – North America (INTEX-A), J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 111(17), D24S01, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006jd007905, 2006.

Tanre, D., Kaufman, Y. J., Herman, M., and Mattoo, S.: Remote sensing of aerosol properties over oceans using the MODIS/EOS spectral radiances, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 102, 16971–16988, 1997.

van der Werf, G. R., Randerson, J. T., Giglio, L., Collatz, G. J., Kasibhatla, P. S., and Arellano Jr., A. F.: Interannual variability in global biomass burning emissions from 1997 to 2004, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 6, 3423–3441, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-6-3423-2006, 2006.

Webb, R., Davis, C. J., and Lellyett, S.: Meteorological aspects of the ACT bushfires of January 2003, Bushfire 2004 Conference, Dept. for Environment and Heritage, Adelaide, Australia, 2004.

Williams, J., de Reus, M., Krejci, R., Fischer, H., and Ström, J.: Application of the variability-size relationship to atmospheric aerosol studies: estimating aerosol lifetimes and ages, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 2, 133–145, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2-133-2002, 2002.

Young, E. and Paton-Walsh, C.: Formaldehyde and nitrogen dioxide in smoke plumes from Australia's Black Saturday fires, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canberra, Australia, 2010,

Zhao, T. X. P., Laszlo, I., Dubovik, O., Holben, B. N., Sapper, J., Tanre, D., and Pietras, C.: A study of the effect of non-spherical dust particles on the AVHRR aerosol optical thickness retrievals, Geophys. Res. Lett., 30, 1317, https://doi.org/10.1029/2002GL016379, 2003.