Observations of supermicron-sized aerosols originating from biomass burning in southern Central Africa

Miller, Rose M.; McFarquhar, Greg M.; Rauber, Robert M.; O'Brien, Joseph R.; Gupta, Siddhant; Segal-Rozenhaimer, Michal; Dobracki, Amie N.; Sedlacek, Arthur J.; Burton, Sharon P.; Howell, Steven G.; Freitag, Steffen; Dang, Caroline

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14815-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 19

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14815–14831, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14815-2021

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

Special issue: New observations and related modelling studies of the aerosol–cloud–climate...

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 14815–14831, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-14815-2021

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

Articles | Volume 21, issue 19

Research article 06 Oct 2021

Research article | 06 Oct 2021

Observations of supermicron-sized aerosols originating from biomass burning in southern Central Africa

Rose M. Miller et al.

Data sets

The ERA5 Global Reanalysis (https://apps.ecmwf.int/data-catalogues/era5/?class=ea) H. Hersbach, B. Bell, P. Berrisford, S. Hirahara, A. Horányi, J. Muñoz-Sabater, J. Nicolas, C. Peubey, R. Radu, D. Schepers, A. Simmons, C. Soci, S. Abdalla, X. Abellan, G. Balsamo, P. Bechtold, G. Biavati, J. Bidlot, M. Bonavita, G. De Chiara, P. Dahlgren, D. Dee, M. Diamantakis, R. Dragani, J. Flemming, R. Forbes, M. Fuentes, A. Geer, L. Haimberger, S. Healy, R. J. Hogan, E. Hólm, M. Janisková, S. Keeley, P. Laloyaux, P. Lopez, C. Lupu, G. Radnoti, P. de Rosnay, I. Rozum, F. Vamborg, S. Villaume, and J.-N Thépaut https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.3803

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2017, Version 2 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2017_V2

Suite of Aerosol, Cloud, and Related Data Acquired Aboard P3 During ORACLES 2018, Version 2 ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2018_V2

Model code and software

University of Illinois/Oklahoma Optical Array Probe (OAP) Processing Software G. M. McFarquhar, J. A. Finlon, D. M. Stechman, W. Wu, R. C. Jackson, and M. Freer https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1285969

The Airborne Data Processing and Analysis software package D. Delene, A. Skow, J. O'Brien, N. Gapp, S. Wagner, K. Hibert, K. Sand, and G. Sova https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3733448

Short summary

A large stratocumulus cloud deck resides off the west coast of central Africa. Biomass burning in Africa produces a large plume of aerosol that is carried by the wind over this stratocumulus cloud deck. This paper shows that particles with sizes from 0.01 to 1 mm reside within this plume. Past studies have shown that biomass burning produces such particles, but this is the first study to show that they can be transported westward, over long distances, to the Atlantic stratocumulus cloud deck.