Regional air quality impact of northern South America biomass burning emissions

Méndez-Espinosa, Juan Felipe; Cerón, Luis Carlos Belalcázar; Betancourt, R. Morales

doi:10.1016/j.atmosenv.2019.01.042

Cited by 61 publications

(62 citation statements)

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“…These months, are therefore characterized by dryer weather in NSA as the deep convection areas are displaced southward, towards Amazonia (Mendez-Espinosa et al, 2019). This mechanisms in turn, largely explain the BB activity patterns in the region.…”

Section: Measurement Site Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…CC BY 4.0 License. mostly determined by the dynamics of wet and dry seasons, which are in turn controlled by the annual south-north migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) (Pulwarty et al, 1998;Poveda et al, 2006;Mendez-Espinosa et al, 2019). Interannual variability in the intensity and length of the dry season, controlled by El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), modulates the intensity of the peak BB emissions in NSA (Poveda et al, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…These high PM 2.5 and ozone levels were associated with distant fires in the Venezuelan savannas. The potential regional-scale air quality impacts of BB emissions in NSA was recently explored by (Mendez-Espinosa et al, 2019). In their work a systematic analysis of air mass back-trajectories and MODIS hotspots for a ten-year period was conducted , finding a strong association between fire counts in NSA and PM 2.5 concentrations in cities located hundreds of kilometers from the BB sources.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In their work a systematic analysis of air mass back-trajectories and MODIS hotspots for a ten-year period was conducted , finding a strong association between fire counts in NSA and PM 2.5 concentrations in cities located hundreds of kilometers from the BB sources. Mendez-Espinosa et al (2019) showed that BB emissions from the NSA savannas could be transported westward impacting air quality in several large metropolitan areas. However, there were no direct measurements of BB available to confirm the presence of BB aerosols in the urban areas considered.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Continuous Brown Carbon and Black Carbon observations during a three-year period were used to establish temporal patterns in the BB tracer signal. The potential origin of the BB aerosols at the site was explored by analyzing the time series of MODIS active fire data in the NSA domain together with a systematic back-trajectory analysis (Mendez-Espinosa et al, 2019). Specific smoke tracers such as levoglucosan and water-soluble potassium were quantified.…”

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Long-term Brown Carbon and Smoke Tracer Observations in Bogotá, Colombia: Association to Medium-Range Transport of Biomass Burning Plumes

Rincón-Riveros¹,

Rincón-Caro²,

Sullivan³

et al. 2020

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Abstract. Light-absorbing aerosols emitted during open biomass burning (BB) events such as wildfires and agricultural burns have a strong impact on the Earth’s radiation budget through both direct and indirect effects. Additionally, BB aerosols and gas-phase emissions can substantially reduce air quality at local, regional, and global scales, negatively affecting human health. South America is one of largest contributors to BB emissions globally. After Amazonia, the BB emissions from the wildfires and agricultural burns in the grassland plains of Northern South America (NSA) are the most significant in the region. However, few studies have analyzed the potential impact of NSA BB emissions on regional air quality. Recent evidence suggests that seasonal variations in air quality in several major cities in NSA could be associated with open biomass burning emissions, but it is still uncertain to what those sources impact air quality in the region. In this work, we report on 3 years of continuous equivalent Black Carbon (eBC) and Brown Carbon (BrC) observations at a hill-top site located upwind of the city of Bogotá and we demonstrate its association with MODIS detected fires in a 3000 km × 2000 km domain. Off-line PM2.5 filter samples collected during three field campaigns were analyzed to quantify water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC), organic and elemental carbon (OC/EC), and biomass burning tracers such as levoglucosan, galactosan, and potassium. MODIS Active Fire Data and HYSPLIT back-trajectories were used to identify potential biomass burning plumes transported to the city. We analyzed the relationship between BrC, WSOC, water-soluble potassium, and levoglucosan to identify signals of regional transport of BB aerosols. Our results confirm that regional biomass burning transport from wildfires occurs annually during the months of January and April. The seasonality of eBC followed closely that of PM2.5 at the city air quality stations, however, the observed seasonality of BrC is distinctly different to that of eBC and strongly associated to regional fire counts. The strong correlation between BrC and regional fire counts was observed both at daily, weekly, and monthly time-scales. WSOC at the measurement site was observed to increase linearly with levoglucosan during high BB periods, and to remain constant at ∼ 2.5 µgC m−3 during the low BB activity seasons. Our findings show, for the first time in this region, that aged BB plumes can regularly reach densely populated areas in the Central Andes of Northern South America. A source footprint analysis involving BrC observations, back-trajectories, and remotely sensed fire activity shows that the eastern savannas in NSA are the main BB source region for the domain analyzed.

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Section: Measurement Site Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 93%

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