Nighttime and daytime dark oxidation chemistry in wildfire plumes: an observation and model analysis of FIREX-AQ aircraft data

Decker, Zachary C. J.; Robinson, Michael A.; Barsanti, Kelley C.; Bourgeois, Ilann; Coggon, Matthew M.; DiGangi, Joshua P.; Diskin, Glenn S.; Flocke, Frank M.; Franchin, Alessandro; Fredrickson, Carley D.; Gkatzelis, Georgios I.; Hall, Samuel R.; Halliday, Hannah; Holmes, Christopher D.; Huey, L. Gregory; Lee, Young Ro; Lindaas, Jakob; Middlebrook, Ann M.; Montzka, Denise D.; Moore, Richard; Neuman, J. Andrew; Nowak, John B.; Palm, Brett B.; Peischl, Jeff; Piel, Felix; Rickly, Pamela S.; Rollins, Andrew W.; Ryerson, Thomas B.; Schwantes, Rebecca H.; Sekimoto, Kanako; Thornhill, Lee; Thornton, Joel A.; Tyndall, Geoffrey S.; Ullmann, Kirk; Van Rooy, Paul; Veres, Patrick R.; Warneke, Carsten; Washenfelder, Rebecca A.; Weinheimer, Andrew J.; Wiggins, Elizabeth; Winstead, Edward; Wisthaler, Armin; Womack, Caroline; Brown, Steven S.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16293-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 21

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 16293–16317, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16293-2021

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

Atmos. Chem. Phys., 21, 16293–16317, 2021

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16293-2021

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

Articles | Volume 21, issue 21

Research article

08 Nov 2021

Research article | 08 Nov 2021

Nighttime and daytime dark oxidation chemistry in wildfire plumes: an observation and model analysis of FIREX-AQ aircraft data

Zachary C. J. Decker et al.

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-16293-2021-supplement

Data sets

FIREX-AQ NASA https://www-air.larc.nasa.gov/missions/firex-aq/index.html

Model code and software

The Framework for 0-D Atmospheric Modeling (F0AM) v3.1 (https://github.com/AirChem/F0AM) G. M. Wolfe, M. R. Marvin, S. J. Roberts, K. R. Travis, and J. Liao https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-3309-2016

Nighttime Chemical Transformation in Biomass Burning Plumes: A Box Model Analysis Initialized with Aircraft Observations (Supplement) Z. C. J. Decker, K. J. Zarzana, M. Coggon, K.-E. Min, I. Pollack, T. B. Ryerson, J. Peischl, P. Edwards, W. P. Dubé, M. Z. Markovic, J. M. Roberts, P. R. Veres, M. Graus, C. Warneke, J. de Gouw, L. E. Hatch, K. C. Barsanti, and S. S. Brown https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.8b05359

Short summary

To understand air quality impacts from wildfires, we need an accurate picture of how wildfire smoke changes chemically both day and night as sunlight changes the chemistry of smoke. We present a chemical analysis of wildfire smoke as it changes from midday through the night. We use aircraft observations from the FIREX-AQ field campaign with a chemical box model. We find that even under sunlight typical nighttime chemistry thrives and controls the fate of key smoke plume chemical processes.