We observed a plume of air highly enriched in carbon monoxide and particles in the stratosphere at altitudes up to 15.8 km. It can be unambiguously attributed to North American forest fires. This plume demonstrates an extra‐tropical direct transport path from the planetary boundary layer several kilometers deep into the stratosphere, which is not fully captured by large‐scale atmospheric transport models. This process indicates that the stratospheric ozone layer could be sensitive to changes in forest burning associated with climatic warming.
[1] A steady state model, constrained by a number of measured quantities, was used to derive peroxy radical levels for the conditions of the Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE) campaign. The analysis is made using data collected aboard the NCAR/NSF C-130 aircraft from February through May 2000 at latitudes from 40°to 85°N, and at altitudes from the surface to 7.6 km. HO 2 + RO 2 radical concentrations were measured during the experiment, which are compared with model results over the domain of the study showing good agreement on the average. Average measurement/model ratios are 1.04 (s = 0.73) and 0.96 (s = 0.52) for the MLB and HLB, respectively. Budgets of total peroxy radical levels as well as of individual free radical members were constructed, which reveal interesting differences compared to studies at lower latitudes. The midlatitude part of the study region is a significant net source of ozone, while the high latitudes constitute a small net sink leading to the hypothesis that transport from the middle latitudes can explain the observed increase in ozone in the high latitudes. Radical reservoir species concentrations are modeled and compared with the observations. For most conditions, the model does a good job of reproducing the formaldehyde observations, but the peroxide observations are significantly less than steady state for this study. Photostationary state (PSS) derived total peroxy radical levels and NO/NO 2 ratios are compared with the measurements and the model; PSS-derived results are higher than observations or the steady state model at low NO concentrations.
Abstract.We have quantified the relationship between Aerosol Index (AI) measurements and plume height for young biomass burning plumes using coincident Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) measurements. This linear relationship allows the determination of high-altitude plumes wherever AI data are available, and it provides a data set for validating global fire plume heights in chemistry transport models. We find that all plumes detected from June 2006 to February 2009 with an AI value ≥9 are located at altitudes higher than 5 km. Older high-altitude plumes have lower AI values than young plumes at similar altitudes. We have examined available AI data from the OMI and TOMS instruments and find that large AI plumes occur more frequently over North America than over Australia or Russia/Northeast Asia. According to the derived relationship, during this time interval, 181 plumes, in various stages of their evolution, reached altitudes above 8 km.
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