Articles | Volume 19, issue 24
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-15217-2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-15217-2019
Research article
 | 
16 Dec 2019
Research article |  | 16 Dec 2019

Remote biomass burning dominates southern West African air pollution during the monsoon

Sophie L. Haslett, Jonathan W. Taylor, Mathew Evans, Eleanor Morris, Bernhard Vogel, Alima Dajuma, Joel Brito, Anneke M. Batenburg, Stephan Borrmann, Johannes Schneider, Christiane Schulz, Cyrielle Denjean, Thierry Bourrianne, Peter Knippertz, Régis Dupuy, Alfons Schwarzenböck, Daniel Sauer, Cyrille Flamant, James Dorsey, Ian Crawford, and Hugh Coe

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Three aircraft datasets from the DACCIWA campaign in summer 2016 are used here to show there is a background mass of pollution present in the lower atmosphere in southern West Africa. We suggest that this likely comes from biomass burning in central and southern Africa, which has been carried into the region over the Atlantic Ocean. This would have a negative health impact on populations living near the coast and may alter the impact of growing city emissions on cloud formation and the monsoon.
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