Arctic smoke – record high air pollution levels in the European Arctic due to agricultural fires in Eastern Europe in spring 2006

Abstract

Abstract. In spring 2006, the European Arctic was abnormally warm, setting new historical temperature records. During this warm period, smoke from agricultural fires in Eastern Europe intruded into the European Arctic and caused the most severe air pollution episodes ever recorded there. This paper confirms that biomass burning (BB) was indeed the source of the observed air pollution, studies the transport of the smoke into the Arctic, and presents an overview of the observations taken during the episode. Fire detections from the MODIS instruments aboard the Aqua and Terra satellites were used to estimate the BB emissions. The FLEX-PART particle dispersion model was used to show that the smoke was transported to Spitsbergen and Iceland, which was confirmed by MODIS retrievals of the aerosol optical depth (AOD) and AIRS retrievals of carbon monoxide (CO) total columns. Concentrations of halocarbons, carbon dioxide and CO, as well as levoglucosan and potassium, measured at Zeppelin mountain near NyÅlesund, were used to further corroborate the BB source of the smoke at Spitsbergen. The ozone (O 3 ) and CO concentrations were the highest ever observed at the Zeppelin station, and gaseous elemental mercury was also elevated. A new O 3 record was also set at a station on Iceland. The smoke was strongly absorbingblack carbon concentrations were the highest ever recorded Correspondence to: A. Stohl (ast@nilu.no) at Zeppelin -and strongly perturbed the radiation transmission in the atmosphere: aerosol optical depths were the highest ever measured at NyÅlesund. We furthermore discuss the aerosol chemical composition, obtained from filter samples, as well as the aerosol size distribution during the smoke event. Photographs show that the snow at a glacier on Spitsbergen became discolored during the episode and, thus, the snow albedo was reduced. Samples of this polluted snow contained strongly elevated levels of potassium, sulphate, nitrate and ammonium ions, thus relating the discoloration to the deposition of the smoke aerosols. This paper shows that, to date, BB has been underestimated as a source of aerosol and air pollution for the Arctic, relative to emissions from fossil fuel combustion. Given its significant impact on air quality over large spatial scales and on radiative processes, the practice of agricultural waste burning should be banned in the future.

Temporally delineated sources of major chemical species in high Arctic snow

“…However, this central Asian source was found to be a smaller contributor of total Arctic BC than eastern Asia. Similarly, Hirdman et al (2010) and Stohl et al (2007) also identified a primarily northeastern Eurasian source to Arctic BC in the winter-late spring. The lack of a distinct eastern Asian source for Factor 3, BC, may indicate that the 10-day trajectory analysis was not long enough to fully capture this influence.…”

Global anthropogenic emissions of particulate matter including black carbon

“…and has also been linked with heavy smog and haze episodes (e.g. Mukai et al, 2015;Stohl et al, 2007).…”

Remote sensing of aerosols over snow using infrared AATSR observations

“…This makes it impossible to create one atmospheric LUT, which would represent aerosol properties well on global scale. As current work is dedicated to AOT retrieval in Arctic region, we took the advantage of ground based aerosol measurements and created a LUT using phase function and single scattering albedo values measured in situ during one of the regular pollution events in Arctic Stohl et al, 2007) . The AOT range was from 0 to 1 (at 500 nm).…”