Exploring the elevated water vapor signal associated with the free tropospheric biomass burning plume over the southeast Atlantic Ocean

Pistone, Kristina; Zuidema, Paquita; Wood, Robert; Diamond, Michael; da Silva, Arlindo M.; Ferrada, Gonzalo; Saide, Pablo E.; Ueyama, Rei; Ryoo, Ju-Mee; Pfister, Leonhard; Podolske, James; Noone, David; Bennett, Ryan; Stith, Eric; Carmichael, Gregory; Redemann, Jens; Flynn, Connor; LeBlanc, Samuel; Segal-Rozenhaimer, Michal; Shinozuka, Yohei

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021

© 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...

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021

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

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

Research article

|

29 Jun 2021

Research article |

| 29 Jun 2021

Exploring the elevated water vapor signal associated with the free tropospheric biomass burning plume over the southeast Atlantic Ocean

Kristina Pistone, Paquita Zuidema, Robert Wood, Michael Diamond, Arlindo M. da Silva, Gonzalo Ferrada, Pablo E. Saide, Rei Ueyama, Ju-Mee Ryoo, Leonhard Pfister, James Podolske, David Noone, Ryan Bennett, Eric Stith, Gregory Carmichael, Jens Redemann, Connor Flynn, Samuel LeBlanc, Michal Segal-Rozenhaimer, and Yohei Shinozuka

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9643-2021-supplement

Data sets

ORACLES 2016 archival dataset for P-3 observations ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2016_V1

ORACLES 2017 archival dataset for P-3 observations ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2017_V1

ORACLES 2018 archival dataset for P-3 observations ORACLES Science Team https://doi.org/10.5067/Suborbital/ORACLES/P3/2018_V1

ERA5: Fifth generation of ECMWF atmospheric reanalyses of the global climate Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/cdsapp#!/home

NOAA's HYSPLIT Atmospheric Transport and Dispersion Modeling System (https://www.ready.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php) A. F. Stein, R. R. Draxler, G. D. Rolph, B. J. B. Stunder, M. D. Cohen, and F. Ngan https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-14-00110.1

Real-time Environmental Applications and Display sYstem: READY (https://www.ready.noaa.gov/archives.php) Glenn Rolph, Ariel Stein, and Barbara Stunder https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsoft.2017.06.025

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

Using aircraft-based measurements off the Atlantic coast of Africa, we found the springtime smoke plume was strongly correlated with the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere (more smoke indicated more humidity). We see the same general feature in satellite-assimilated and free-running models. Our analysis suggests this relationship is not caused by the burning but originates due to coincident continental meteorology plus fires. This air is transported over the ocean without further mixing.