Characterization of intra-continental smoke transport and impact on New York State air quality using aerosol reanalysis and multi-platform observations

Lin, Chin-An; Lu, Chungu; Chen, Sheng-Po; Hung, Wei-Ting; Civerolo, Kevin; Rattigan, Oliver V.

doi:10.1016/j.apr.2021.01.021

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Wildfire smoke and pyrogenic O 3 can be transported hundreds or even thousands of km in the free troposphere before being entrained into the boundary layer far downwind (Johnson et al., 2021; Lin et al., 2021; McKeen et al., 2002). In‐situ measurements of pyrogenic O 3 in the free troposphere have rarely been made outside of aircraft‐based field campaigns, but O 3 ‐rich smoke plumes have also been detected by ground‐based lidars belonging to the NASA‐sponsored Tropospheric Ozone Lidar Network (TOLNet) (Dreessen et al., 2016; Kuang et al., 2017; Langford et al., 2020, Johnson et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2021) and the relationship between the aerosol backscatter ( β ) and O 3 in the smoke can be used to estimate the amount of pyrogenic O 3 above the lidar (Langford et al., 2020).…”

Section: Lidar O3 and Backscatter Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Were Wildfires Responsible for the Unusually High Surface Ozone in Colorado During 2021?

et al. 2023

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The adverse impacts of wildfires on ambient air quality and human health have grown in recent years as climactic shifts and long-standing fire suppression practices have increased fire activity across the western U.S. and Canada (Bryant & Westerling, 2014;Westerling et al., 2016). Wildfires generate large quantities of carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in addition to primary and secondary fine particulates (PM 2.5 ), and also produce a variety of other gaseous compounds including the reactive nitrogen oxides (NO + NO 2 = NO x ) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are the photochemical precursors of ozone (O 3 ). The negative health effects of CO, O 3 , NO 2 , and PM 2.5 have long been recognized, and these pollutants comprise four of the six "criteria" air pollutants regulated by the U.S. Clean Air Act (CAA) and are subject to National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) (Karstadt et al., 1993). Ozone and PM 2.5 both impair lung and cardiovascular function (Brown et al., 2008;Reid et al., 2016) and recent studies (Kalashnikov et al., 2022) suggest that exposure to wildfire smoke containing both O 3 and PM 2.5 can have more severe health impacts than exposure to either pollutant alone.The production of O 3 by wildfires depends on many factors (Jaffe et al., 2018;Jaffe & Wigder, 2012) that affect the NO x and VOC precursor emissions (e.g., fuel type and moisture content), the photochemical reaction rates (e.g., plume height and density), or both (e.g., meteorology) (Xu et al., 2021). Ozone concentrations

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Section: Lidar O3 and Backscatter Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Were Wildfires Responsible for the Unusually High Surface Ozone in Colorado During 2021?

et al. 2023

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“…Historically, an estimated 20-25% of all PM2.5 events exceeding the 24-hour national standard have occurred when wild re smoke was present (Kaulfus et al, 2017). Long-range transport of PM2.5 via large-scale ow is known to substantially increase PM2.5 concentrations, sometimes by a factor of 2-3 (Mueller et al, 2020;Lin et al, 2021;Mardi et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In severe re years, wild re smoke pollution is even more signi cant. One estimate found 41% of CONUS pollution in 2020 could be attributed solely to west coast res (Lin et al, 2021). Another found an estimated 25% of air quality gains since at least 2016 have already been eroded by increases in wild re-related PM2.5 concentrations (Burke et al, 2023) Appropriately characterizing and communicating potential reversals in air quality progress is important for addressing public health and quality of life challenges across the United States.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate adjusted projections of the distribution and frequency of poor air quality days for the Contiguous United States

Wilson,

Pope,

Melecio-Vasquez

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Unhealthy air quality conditions can strongly affect long-term human health and well-being, yet many air quality data products focus on near real-time alerts or short-term forecasts. Understanding the full state of air quality also requires examining the longer term frequency and intensity of poor air quality at ground level, and how it might change over time. We present a new modeling framework to compute climate-adjusted estimates of air quality hazards for the contiguous United States (CONUS) at 10 kilometer horizontal resolution. The framework blends results from statistical, machine-learning, and climate-chemistry models – including a bias-adjusted version of the EPA Community Multiscale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) time series as described in (Wilson et al., 2022) - for ground-level ozone, anthropogenic fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and wildfire smoke PM2.5 into consistent estimates of days exceeding the ‘unhealthy for sensitive groups’ (orange colored) classification on the EPA Air Quality Index for 2023 and 2053. We find that joint PM2.5 and ozone orange + days range from 1 day to 41 days across CONUS, with a median value of 2 days, across all years. Considering all properties across CONUS, we find that 63.5% percent are exposed to at least one orange or greater day in 2023, growing to 72.1% in 2053. For a 7-day threshold, 3.8% and 5.7% of properties are exposed in 2023 and 2053, respectively. Our results also support the identification of which parts of the country are most likely to be impacted by additional climate-related air quality risks. With growing evidence that even low levels of air pollution are harmful, these results are an important step forward in empowering individuals to understand their air quality risks both now and into the future.

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“…Historically, an estimated 20%-25% of all PM2.5 events exceeding the 24-h national standard have occurred when wildfire smoke was present (Kaulfus et al, 2017). Long-range transport of PM2.5 via large-scale flow is known to substantially increase PM2.5 concentrations, sometimes by a factor of 2-3 (Mueller et al, 2020;Lin et al, 2021;Mardi et al, 2021). Local fires' influence can dominate, with prescribed fire burning found to explain about 25% of the variance in overall PM2.5 concentrations in the southeast United States (Afrin and Garcia-Menendez, 2020), with small fires' smoke dominating within 2 km of the source (Pearce et al, 2012).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In severe fire years, wildfire smoke pollution is even more significant. One estimate found 41% of CONUS pollution in 2020 could be attributed solely to west coast fires (Lin et al, 2021). Another found an estimated 25% of air quality gains since at least 2016 have already been eroded by increases in wildfire-related PM2.5 concentrations (Burke et al, 2023).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate adjusted projections of the distribution and frequency of poor air quality days for the contiguous United States

Wilson,

Pope,

Melecio-Vazquez

et al. 2024

Front. Earth Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Unhealthy air quality conditions can strongly affect long-term human health and wellbeing, yet many air quality data products focus on near real-time alerts or short-term forecasts. Understanding the full state of air quality also requires examining the longer term frequency and intensity of poor air quality at ground level, and how it might change over time. We present a new modeling framework to compute climate-adjusted estimates of air quality hazards for the contiguous United States (CONUS) at 10 km horizontal resolution. The framework blends results from statistical, machine-learning, and climate-chemistry models—including a bias-adjusted version of the EPA Community Multiscale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) time series as described in (Wilson et al., 2022)—for ground-level ozone, anthropogenic fine particulate matter (PM2.5), and wildfire smoke PM2.5 into consistent estimates of days exceeding the “unhealthy for sensitive groups” (orange colored) classification on the EPA Air Quality Index for 2023 and 2053. We find that joint PM2.5 and ozone orange+ days range from 1 day to 41 days across CONUS, with a median value of 2 days, across all years. Considering all properties across CONUS, we find that 63.5% percent are exposed to at least one orange or greater day in 2023, growing to 72.1% in 2053. For a 7-day threshold, 3.8% and 5.7% of properties are exposed in 2023 and 2053, respectively. Our results also support the identification of which parts of the country are most likely to be impacted by additional climate-related air quality risks. With growing evidence that even low levels of air pollution are harmful, these results are an important step forward in empowering individuals to understand their air quality risks both now and into the future.

show abstract

Characterization of intra-continental smoke transport and impact on New York State air quality using aerosol reanalysis and multi-platform observations

Cited by 4 publications

References 69 publications

Were Wildfires Responsible for the Unusually High Surface Ozone in Colorado During 2021?

Were Wildfires Responsible for the Unusually High Surface Ozone in Colorado During 2021?

Climate adjusted projections of the distribution and frequency of poor air quality days for the Contiguous United States

Climate adjusted projections of the distribution and frequency of poor air quality days for the contiguous United States

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