Articles | Volume 18, issue 15
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11289-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-11289-2018
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

Related authors

Large spatiotemporal variability in aerosol properties over central Argentina during the CACTI field campaign
Jerome D. Fast, Adam C. Varble, Fan Mei, Mikhail Pekour, Jason Tomlinson, Alla Zelenyuk, Art J. Sedlacek III, Maria Zawadowicz, and Louisa Emmons
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13477–13502, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024, 2024
Short summary
Burning conditions and transportation pathways determine biomass-burning aerosol properties in the Ascension Island marine boundary layer
Amie Dobracki, Ernie Lewis, Arthur Sedlacek III, Tyler Tatro, Maria Zawadowicz, and Paquita Zuidema
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1347,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-1347, 2024
Short summary
Biomass-burning smoke's properties and its interactions with marine stratocumulus clouds in WRF-CAM5 and southeastern Atlantic field campaigns
Calvin Howes, Pablo E. Saide, Hugh Coe, Amie Dobracki, Steffen Freitag, Jim M. Haywood, Steven G. Howell, Siddhant Gupta, Janek Uin, Mary Kacarab, Chongai Kuang, L. Ruby Leung, Athanasios Nenes, Greg M. McFarquhar, James Podolske, Jens Redemann, Arthur J. Sedlacek, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Jenny P. S. Wong, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, Yang Zhang, Jianhao Zhang, and Paquita Zuidema
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 13911–13940, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13911-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-13911-2023, 2023
Short summary
An attribution of the low single-scattering albedo of biomass burning aerosol over the southeastern Atlantic
Amie Dobracki, Paquita Zuidema, Steven G. Howell, Pablo Saide, Steffen Freitag, Allison C. Aiken, Sharon P. Burton, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Jens Redemann, and Robert Wood
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 23, 4775–4799, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4775-2023,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-4775-2023, 2023
Short summary
Intercomparison of airborne and surface-based measurements during the CLARIFY, ORACLES and LASIC field experiments
Paul A. Barrett, Steven J. Abel, Hugh Coe, Ian Crawford, Amie Dobracki, James Haywood, Steve Howell, Anthony Jones, Justin Langridge, Greg M. McFarquhar, Graeme J. Nott, Hannah Price, Jens Redemann, Yohei Shinozuka, Kate Szpek, Jonathan W. Taylor, Robert Wood, Huihui Wu, Paquita Zuidema, Stéphane Bauguitte, Ryan Bennett, Keith Bower, Hong Chen, Sabrina Cochrane, Michael Cotterell, Nicholas Davies, David Delene, Connor Flynn, Andrew Freedman, Steffen Freitag, Siddhant Gupta, David Noone, Timothy B. Onasch, James Podolske, Michael R. Poellot, Sebastian Schmidt, Stephen Springston, Arthur J. Sedlacek III, Jamie Trembath, Alan Vance, Maria A. Zawadowicz, and Jianhao Zhang
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 15, 6329–6371, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-6329-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-15-6329-2022, 2022
Short summary

Related subject area

Subject: Aerosols | Research Activity: Field Measurements | Altitude Range: Troposphere | Science Focus: Physics (physical properties and processes)
Large spatiotemporal variability in aerosol properties over central Argentina during the CACTI field campaign
Jerome D. Fast, Adam C. Varble, Fan Mei, Mikhail Pekour, Jason Tomlinson, Alla Zelenyuk, Art J. Sedlacek III, Maria Zawadowicz, and Louisa Emmons
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13477–13502, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13477-2024, 2024
Short summary
Quantification and characterization of primary biological aerosol particles and microbes aerosolized from Baltic seawater
Julika Zinke, Gabriel Pereira Freitas, Rachel Ann Foster, Paul Zieger, Ernst Douglas Nilsson, Piotr Markuszewski, and Matthew Edward Salter
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13413–13428, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13413-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13413-2024, 2024
Short summary
Brownness of organics in anthropogenic biomass burning aerosols over South Asia
Chimurkar Navinya, Taveen Singh Kapoor, Gupta Anurag, Chandra Venkataraman, Harish C. Phuleria, and Rajan K. Chakrabarty
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 13285–13297, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13285-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-13285-2024, 2024
Short summary
Source apportionment of particle number size distribution at the street canyon and urban background sites
Sami D. Harni, Minna Aurela, Sanna Saarikoski, Jarkko V. Niemi, Harri Portin, Hanna Manninen, Ville Leinonen, Pasi Aalto, Phil K. Hopke, Tuukka Petäjä, Topi Rönkkö, and Hilkka Timonen
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12143–12160, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12143-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12143-2024, 2024
Short summary
Long-range transport of coarse mineral dust: an evaluation of the Met Office Unified Model against aircraft observations
Natalie G. Ratcliffe, Claire L. Ryder, Nicolas Bellouin, Stephanie Woodward, Anthony Jones, Ben Johnson, Lisa-Maria Wieland, Maximilian Dollner, Josef Gasteiger, and Bernadett Weinzierl
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 12161–12181, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-12161-2024, 2024
Short summary

Cited articles

Adachi, K. and Buseck, P. B.: Atmospheric tar balls from biomass burning in Mexico, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 116, D05204, https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD015102, 2011. 
Adachi, K., Chung, S. H., and Buseck, P. R.: Shapes of soot aerosol particles and implications for their effects on climate, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 115, D15206, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009JD012868, 2010. 
Adachi, K., Moteki, N., Kondo, Y., and Igarashi, Y.: Mixing states of light-absorbing particles measured using a transmission electron microscope and a single-particle soot photometer in Tokyo, Japan, J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos., 121, 9153–9164, https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JD025153, 2016. 
Adachi, K., Sedlacek, A. J., Kleinman, L., Chand, D., Hubbe, J., and Buseck, P. R.: Thermal behavior of aerosol particles from biomass burning using a transmission electron microscope, Aerosol Sci. Tech., 52, 46–56, https://doi.org/10.1080/02786826.2017.1373181, 2017. 
Alexander, D. T. L., Crozier, P. A., and Anderson, J. R.: Brown carbon spheres in East Asian outflow and their optical properties, Science, 321, 833–835, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1155296, 2008. 
Download
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.
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint