Thermal infrared observations of a western United States biomass burning aerosol plume

Sorenson, Blake T.; Reid, Jeffrey S.; Zhang, Jianglong; Holz, Robert E.; Smith Sr., William L.; Gumber, Amanda

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1231-2024

Articles | Volume 24, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1231-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-1231-2024

© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 2

Research article

|

29 Jan 2024

Research article |

| 29 Jan 2024

Thermal infrared observations of a western United States biomass burning aerosol plume

Blake T. Sorenson, Jeffrey S. Reid, Jianglong Zhang, Robert E. Holz, William L. Smith Sr., and Amanda Gumber

Data sets

MODIS 1km Calibrated Radiances Product, NASA MODIS Adaptive Processing System MODIS Characterization Support Team (MCST) https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MYD021KM.061

NOAA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) 16, 17 & 18 NOAA https://registry.opendata.aws/noaa-goes

NEXRAD on AWS NOAA https://registry.opendata.aws/noaa-nexrad

CERES Single Scanner Footprint (SSF) TOA/Surface Fluxes, Clouds and Aerosols Aqua-FM3 Edition4A NASA/LARC/SD/ASDC https://doi.org/10.5067/AQUA/CERES/SSF-FM3_L2.004A

VNP02MOD - VIIRS/NPP Moderate Resolution 6-Min L1B Swath 750m NASA https://doi.org/10.5067/VIIRS/VNP02MOD.002

VNP02DNB - VIIRS/NPP Day/Night Band 6-Min L1B Swath 750m NASA https://doi.org/10.5067/VIIRS/VNP02DNB.002

VNP03MOD - VIIRS/NPP Moderate Resolution Terrain-Corrected Geolocation 6-Min L1 Swath 750m NASA https://doi.org/10.5067/VIIRS/VNP03MOD.002

VNP03DNB - VIIRS/NPP Day/Night Band Moderate Resolution Terrain-Corrected Geolocation 6-Min L1 Swath 750m NASA https://doi.org/10.5067/VIIRS/VNP03DNB.002

Short summary

Smoke particles are typically submicron in size and assumed to have negligible impacts at the thermal infrared spectrum. However, we show that infrared signatures can be observed over dense smoke plumes from satellites. We found that giant particles are unlikely to be the dominant cause. Rather, co-transported water vapor injected to the middle to upper troposphere and surface cooling beneath the plume due to shadowing are significant, with the surface cooling effect being the most dominant.