Including the sub-grid scale plume rise of vegetation fires in low resolution atmospheric transport models

Freitas, Saulo R.; Longo, Karla M.; Chatfield, R. B.; Latham, Don; Dias, Maria A. F. Silva; Andreae, Meinrat O.; Prins, E. M.; Santos, José Carlos dos; Gielow, Ralf; Carvalho, João Andrade de

doi:10.5194/acp-7-3385-2007

Cited by 388 publications

(507 citation statements)

References 52 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

501

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The remaining 75 % of the emissions are distributed from the surface to the PBL height with constant mass mixing ratio. Vertical emission distributions with constant mass mixing ratios have been used in most former global aerosol modeling studies even in case of more advanced plume models, e.g., Freitas et al (2007). Our knowledge about the global variability of vertical emission distributions is even more limited than our knowledge about the plume heights.…”

Section: Vertical Distribution Of Wildfire Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overall, modeling as well as observational studies (e.g., Diner et al, 2008;Val Martin et al, 2010;Ichoku et al, 2012) indicate that wildfire plume heights are highly variable on the global scale. While Freitas et al (2007), Rio et al (2010) and others demonstrated a reasonable performance for their specific plume height parametrizations in particular case studies; other authors including Val Martin et al (2012) and Goodrick et al (2012) presented results that showed a poor to moderate performance of all these models on the global scale.…”

Section: A Veira Et Al: Impact On Transport Black Carbon Concentramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although advanced emission height models are available for implementation in global circulation models (e.g., Luderer et al, 2006;Freitas et al, 2007;Rio et al, 2010), there is an ongoing discussion about which degree of complexity in emission height parametrization is required for global Climate Modeling. Due to a lack of observational plume height data sets of global coverage, our knowledge regarding appropriate emission height parametrizations for specific global modeling applications is largely based on short-term or regional studies.…”

Section: A Veira Et Al: Impact On Transport Black Carbon Concentramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For a study by Stein et al (2009), in one case PBL injections performed best, whereas in another case plume heights up to 3 km were necessary to reproduce observations. Gonzi et al (2015) applied a modified version of the 1-D plume model by Freitas et al (2007), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) fire radiative power (FRP) and fire size to simulate global CO concentrations in GEOS-Chem for the year 2006. The authors compared modeling results to MOPITT (Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere) satellite data, but it turned out that the particular emission height impact on the overall bias was not quantifiable.…”

Section: A Veira Et Al: Impact On Transport Black Carbon Concentramentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Fire emission heights in the climate system – Part 2: Impact on transport, black carbon concentrations and radiation

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Wildfires represent a major source for aerosols impacting atmospheric radiation, atmospheric chemistry and cloud micro-physical properties. Previous case studies indicated that the height of the aerosol-radiation interaction may crucially affect atmospheric radiation, but the sensitivity to emission heights has been examined with only a few models and is still uncertain. In this study we use the general circulation model ECHAM6 extended by the aerosol module HAM2 to investigate the impact of wildfire emission heights on atmospheric long-range transport, black carbon (BC) concentrations and atmospheric radiation. We simulate the wildfire aerosol release using either various versions of a semiempirical plume height parametrization or prescribed standard emission heights in ECHAM6-HAM2. Extreme scenarios of near-surface or free-tropospheric-only injections provide lower and upper constraints on the emission height climate impact. We find relative changes in mean global atmospheric BC burden of up to 7.9 ± 4.4 % caused by average changes in emission heights of 1.5-3.5 km. Regionally, changes in BC burden exceed 30-40 % in the major biomass burning regions. The model evaluation of aerosol optical thickness (AOT) against Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) observations indicates that the implementation of a plume height parametrization slightly reduces the ECHAM6-HAM2 biases regionally, but on the global scale these improvements in model performance are small. For prescribed emission release at the surface, wildfire emissions entail a total sky top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative forcing (RF) of −0.16 ± 0.06 W m −2 . The application of a plume height parametrization which agrees reasonably well with observations introduces a slightly stronger negative TOA RF of −0.20 ± 0.07 W m −2 . The standard ECHAM6-HAM2 model in which 25 % of the wildfire emissions are injected into the free troposphere (FT) and 75 % into the planetary boundary layer (PBL), leads to a TOA RF of −0.24 ± 0.06 W m −2 . Overall, we conclude that simple plume height parametrizations provide sufficient representations of emission heights for global climate modeling. Significant improvements in aerosol wildfire modeling likely depend on better emission inventories and aerosol process modeling rather than on improved emission height parametrizations.

show abstract

Section: Vertical Distribution Of Wildfire Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Veira Et Al: Impact On Transport Black Carbon Concentramentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Veira Et Al: Impact On Transport Black Carbon Concentramentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Veira Et Al: Impact On Transport Black Carbon Concentramentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Fire emission heights in the climate system – Part 2: Impact on transport, black carbon concentrations and radiation

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Smoke injection heights are key inputs for aerosol transport modeling, as they are critical for determining the distance and direction of the travelling smoke (e.g., Colarco et al, 2004;Freitas et al, 2007). Biomass burning emits hot gases and particles, which are transported upward due to positive buoyancy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Smoke injection heights from agricultural burning in Eastern Europe as seen by CALIPSO

et al. 2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. High frequency of agricultural fires is observed every year during the summer months over SW Russia and Eastern Europe. This study investigates the initial injection height of aerosol generated by the fires over these regions during the biomass burning season, which determines the potential for long-range transport of the smoke. This information is critical for aerosol transport modeling, as it determines the smoke plume evolution. The study focuses on the period 2006-2008, and is based on observations made by the CALIOP instrument on board the NASA CALIPSO satellite. MODIS data are synergistically used for the detection of the fires and the characterization of their intensity. CALIPSO aerosol vertical distributions generated by the active fires are analyzed to investigate the aerosol top height which is considered dependent on the heat generated by the fires and can be associated with the initial injection height. Aerosol top heights of the vertically homogenous smoke layers are found to range between 1.6 and 5.9 km. Smoke injection heights from CALIPSO are compared with mixing layer heights taken by the European Centre for Mediumrange Weather Forecast (ECMWF), to investigate the direct injection of smoke particles into the free troposphere. Our results indicate that the aerosol plumes are observed within the boundary layer for the 50% of the cases examined. For the rest of the cases, the strong updrafts generated by the fires resulted to smoke injection heights greater than the ECMWF estimated mixing layer by 0.5 to 3.0 km, indicating a direct smoke injection into the free troposphere. The smoke injecCorrespondence to: V. Amiridis (vamoir@space.noa.gr) tion height showed a dependence on the MODIS-Land Fire Radiative Power product which is indicative of the fire intensity, especially in the cases of lower static stability in the upper part of the boundary layer and the free troposphere.

show abstract

The effect of smoke emission amount on changes in cloud properties and precipitation: A case study of Canadian boreal wildfires of 2007

Sokolik

2013

JGR Atmospheres

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

[1] We investigate the influence of wildfire smoke aerosols on cloud microphysics and precipitation using a coupled aerosol-cloud microphysics-meteorology model WRF-Chem-SMOKE. The Wildfire Automated Biomass Burning Algorithm products are used to compute "online" hourly size-and composition-resolved smoke emission fluxes during Canadian boreal wildfires in the summer of 2007. Comparisons with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aerosol optical depth, Ozone Monitoring Instrument aerosol index, and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation vertical feature mask demonstrate that WRF-Chem-SMOKE captures both the horizontal and vertical spatial distribution of smoke. However, estimated smoke emissions result in much lower aerosol optical depth values than those of observations (by about tenfold). Modeling experiments with varying amounts of smoke emissions of 5 to 10 times as high as the original load reveal that low smoke load favors the collision-coalescence process at a certain stage, leading to either positive or negative changes in the cloud water path (CWP) relative to smoke-free conditions. For high smoke emissions, changes in CWP are positive, as large as 0.5 kg/m 2 . A domain-integrated increase in CWP is proportional to smoke loading. By contrast, both positive and negative changes in the rain water path (RWP) and the snow water path (SWP) are found. While domain-integrated changes in RWP are negative, those in SWP go from negative to positive under a high smoke load. Higher smoke loadings suppress precipitation initially, because of smoke-induced reduction of the collision-coalescence and riming processes, but ultimately cause an invigoration of precipitation. We found that precipitation is highly sensitive to 3-D smoke fields and varies in a nonlinear manner with smoke loads.

show abstract

Including the sub-grid scale plume rise of vegetation fires in low resolution atmospheric transport models

Cited by 388 publications

References 52 publications

Fire emission heights in the climate system – Part 2: Impact on transport, black carbon concentrations and radiation

Fire emission heights in the climate system – Part 2: Impact on transport, black carbon concentrations and radiation

Smoke injection heights from agricultural burning in Eastern Europe as seen by CALIPSO

The effect of smoke emission amount on changes in cloud properties and precipitation: A case study of Canadian boreal wildfires of 2007

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About