Airborne and ground-based measurements of aerosol optical depth of freshly emitted anthropogenic plumes in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region

Baibakov, Konstantin; LeBlanc, Samuel; Ranjbar, Keyvan; O'Neill, Norman T.; Wolde, Mengistu; Redemann, Jens; Pistone, Kristina; Li, Shao-Meng; Liggio, John; Hayden, Katherine; Chan, Tak W.; Wheeler, Michael J.; Nichman, Leonid; Flynn, Connor; Johnson, Roy

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 13

Research article

|

14 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 14 Jul 2021

Airborne and ground-based measurements of aerosol optical depth of freshly emitted anthropogenic plumes in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region

Konstantin Baibakov, Samuel LeBlanc, Keyvan Ranjbar, Norman T. O'Neill, Mengistu Wolde, Jens Redemann, Kristina Pistone, Shao-Meng Li, John Liggio, Katherine Hayden, Tak W. Chan, Michael J. Wheeler, Leonid Nichman, Connor Flynn, and Roy Johnson

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-10671-2021-supplement

Data sets

AERONET NASA https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/

4STAR datasets (Oil Sands Measurement Campaign 2018) Konstantin Baibakov, Samuel LeBlanc, Mengistu Wolde, Kian Molani, Connor Flynn, Jens Redemann, and Roy Johnson https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3517179

Monitoring air quality in Alberta oil sands Government of Canada https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/oil-sands-monitoring/monitoring-air-quality-alberta-oil-sands.html

Model code and software

4STAR_codes: 4STAR processing codes (Version v1.0.1) 4STAR Team, Samuel LeBlanc, Connor J. Flynn, Yohei Shinozuka, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, Kristina Pistone, Meloë Kacenelenbogen, Jens Redemann, Beat Schmid, Phillip Russell, John Livingston, and Qin Zhang https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1492912

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Short summary

We find that the airborne measurements of the vertical extinction due to aerosols (aerosol optical depth, AOD) obtained in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) can significantly exceed ground-based values. This can have an effect on estimating the AOSR radiative impact and is relevant to satellite validation based on ground-based measurements. We also show that the AOD can marginally increase as the plumes are being transported away from the source and the new particles are being formed.