Formation and evolution of tar balls from northwestern US wildfires

Sedlacek III, Arthur J.; Buseck, Peter R.; Adachi, Kouji; Onasch, Timothy B.; Springston, Stephen R.; Kleinman, Lawrence

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11289-2018

Articles | Volume 18, issue 15

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11289-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11289-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 15

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

13 Aug 2018

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 13 Aug 2018

Formation and evolution of tar balls from northwestern US wildfires

Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Peter R. Buseck, Kouji Adachi, Timothy B. Onasch, Stephen R. Springston, and Lawrence Kleinman

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Final revised paper (published on 13 Aug 2018)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 30 Jan 2018)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Referee Comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 10 Mar 2018
- AC1: 'Author Responses to Reviewer #1', Arthur Sedlacek, 12 May 2018
RC2: 'Review of the paper "Formation and evolution of Tar Balls from Northwestern US wildfires"', Anonymous Referee #2, 18 Mar 2018
- AC2: 'Author Responses to Reviewer #2', Arthur Sedlacek, 12 May 2018

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by Arthur Sedlacek on behalf of the Authors (12 May 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (20 May 2018) by Manvendra Krishna Dubey

RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (27 Jun 2018)

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (28 Jun 2018)

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (29 Jun 2018) by Manvendra Krishna Dubey

AR by Arthur Sedlacek on behalf of the Authors (02 Jul 2018) Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (12 Jul 2018) by Manvendra Krishna Dubey

AR by Arthur Sedlacek on behalf of the Authors (17 Jul 2018) Manuscript

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Short summary

This paper presents the first direct atmospheric observations of the formation and evolution of tar balls (TBs) in forest fires collected during the Department of Energy’s Biomass Burning Observation Project (BBOP). We quantify, for the first time, the TB mass fraction in the BB plumes and show that this mass fraction increases from less than 1 % to 50 % within the first couple of hours of plume aging. Using Mie theory we find that TBs are consistent with being weak light absorbers.