TROPOMI Aerosol Products: Evaluation and Observations of Synoptic Scale Carbonaceous Aerosol Plumes during 2018–2020

Torres, Omar; Jethva, Hiren; Ahn, C.; Jaross, Glen; Loyola, Diego

doi:10.5194/amt-2020-124

Cited by 7 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…2, the smoke injection heights were at about 16-17 km height over the identified pyro-Cb areas. This finding is in agreement with the discussion by Torres et al (2020b) about smoke injection heights required to explain the presented satellitebased AOT observations east of New Zealand on 2 January 2020. All backward trajectories that crossed the pyro-Cb areas on 30-31 December 2019 at heights between 14 and 17 km (colored trajectories) arrived at Punta Arenas between about 11 and 13 km height (the 12.5 km trajectory ensemble is given in Fig.…”

Section: Figure 1 (A)supporting

confidence: 93%

“…After the dissolution of the clouds, the released smoke absorbed solar radiation, heated the air, and probably ascended with a rate of about 1-2 km d −1 during the first 3 d after injection as long as the stratospheric smoke AOT (at 550 nm) was on the order of 2 or more, as was the case according to satellite observations over the Pacific east of Australia (MODIS, 2020b;CALIPSO, 2020;Torres et al, 2020b). Torres et al (2020b) reported 388 nm AOT values of 1 to > 5 in a large smoke field east of New Zealand on 2 January 2020. This smoke field was linked to the pyro-Cb activity over southeastern Australia on 30-31 December 2019.…”

Section: Figure 1 (A)mentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Similar to the Northern Hemispheric smoke event in 2017, the decay of the perturbation may last longer than 6 months (Baars et al, 2019b;Kloss et al, 2019). These significantly changed stratospheric aerosol conditions have the potential to sensitively influence radiative transfer (Boers et al, 2010;Ditas et al, 2018;Kloss et al, 2019;Yu et al, 2019), heterogeneous ice nucleation in cloud layers (Ullrich et al, 2017), and heterogeneous chemical reactions (Yu et al, 2019) by providing surfaces for, e.g., chlorine activation (McConnell and Jin, 2010). Furthermore, such events enrich the natural soot particle reservoir between 20 and 30 km (Renard et al, 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Smoke of extreme Australian bushfires observed in the stratosphere over Punta Arenas, Chile, in January 2020: optical thickness, lidar ratios, and depolarization ratios at 355 and 532 nm

et al. 2020

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Abstract. We present particle optical properties of stratospheric smoke layers observed with multiwavelength polarization Raman lidar over Punta Arenas (53.2∘ S, 70.9∘ W), Chile, at the southernmost tip of South America in January 2020. The smoke originated from the record-breaking bushfires in Australia. The stratospheric aerosol optical thickness reached values up to 0.85 at 532 nm in mid-January 2020. The main goal of this rapid communication letter is to provide first stratospheric measurements of smoke extinction-to-backscatter ratios (lidar ratios) and particle linear depolarization ratios at 355 and 532 nm wavelengths. These aerosol parameters are important input parameters in the analysis of spaceborne CALIPSO and Aeolus lidar observations of the Australian smoke spreading over large parts of the Southern Hemisphere in January and February 2020 up to heights of around 30 km. Lidar and depolarization ratios, simultaneously measured at 355 and 532 nm, are of key importance regarding the homogenization of the overall Aeolus (355 nm wavelength) and CALIPSO (532 nm wavelength) lidar data sets documenting the spread of the smoke and the decay of the stratospheric perturbation, which will be observable over the entire year of 2020. We found typical values and spectral dependencies of the lidar ratio and linear depolarization ratio for aged stratospheric smoke. At 355 nm, the lidar ratio and depolarization ratio ranged from 53 to 97 sr (mean 71 sr) and 0.2 to 0.26 (mean 0.23), respectively. At 532 nm, the lidar ratios were higher (75–112 sr, mean 97 sr) and the depolarization ratios were lower with values of 0.14–0.22 (mean 0.18). The determined depolarization ratios for aged Australian smoke are in very good agreement with respective ones for aged Canadian smoke, observed with lidar in stratospheric smoke layers over central Europe in the summer of 2017. The much higher 532 nm lidar ratios, however, indicate stronger absorption by the Australian smoke particles.

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Section: Figure 1 (A)supporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Figure 1 (A)mentioning

confidence: 90%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Smoke of extreme Australian bushfires observed in the stratosphere over Punta Arenas, Chile, in January 2020: optical thickness, lidar ratios, and depolarization ratios at 355 and 532 nm

et al. 2020

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“…Meyer et al (2012) found that approximately 550,000 km 2 of tropical and arid savannahs are burned each year in Australia. Australia contributes about 6-8% of global carbon emissions from biomass burning (van der Werf et al, 2006;Meyer et al, 2008). It is also found that biomass burning 50 aerosol is the dominant aerosol type in northern and southeastern Australia during spring and summer, respectively (Mitchell et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2020b).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…During the wildfire periods, a large amount of aerosols containing smoke, dust, and other burning material were uplifted into the atmosphere, and were even transported around the world, which significantly affected the regional and global atmospheric chemistry, carbon cycle and surface radiation budget. For example, Torres et al (2020) found that the great 65 fires in the New South Wales of Australia injected large amount of carbonaceous aerosols in the stratosphere. These wildfires significantly affected local air quality and visibility, and can also be transported to the New Zealand, resulting in degraded air quality in some cities.…”

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confidence: 99%

Statistical aerosol properties associated with fire events from 2002 to 2019 along with a case analysis in 2019 over Australia

Yang¹,

Zhao²,

Yang³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Wildfires are an important contributor to atmospheric aerosols in Australia and could significantly affect regional and even global climate. This study investigates the impact of fire events on aerosol properties along with the long-range transport of biomass burning aerosols over Australia using multi-year measurements from Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) at ten sites over Australia, satellite dataset derived from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP), reanalysis data from Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2), and back-trajectories from the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT). Strong correlation (0.62) was found between fire radiative power (FRP) and aerosol optical depth (AOD) over Australia, suggesting the significant contribution to aerosols from fires. The fire count, FRP, and AOD showed distinct and consistent interannual variations with high values during September–February (Biomass Burning period, BB period) and low values during March–August (non-Biomass Burning period, non-BB period) every year. The annual average contribution of carbonaceous, dust, sulfate and sea salt aerosols to total aerosol were 26.24 %, 23.38 %, 26.36 % and 24.02 %, respectively. The results from AERONET, MODIS, and MERRA-2 showed that AOD values significantly increased with fine mode aerosol dominated during BB period, especially in northern and southeastern Australia. Further, Carbonaceous aerosol was the main contributor to total aerosols during BB period, especially in September–December when carbonaceous aerosol contributed the most (30.08–42.91 %). The great fires during the BB period of 2019/2020 further demonstrated significant impact on aerosol properties, such as the extreme increase in AOD for most southeastern Australia, the dominance of fine particle aerosols, and the significant increase in carbonaceous and dust aerosols in southeastern and central Australia, respectively. Moreover, smoke was found as the dominant aerosol type detected at heights 2.5–12 km in southeastern Australia in December 2019 and at heights roughly from 6.2 to 12 km in January 2020. In contrast, dust was detected more frequently at heights from 2 to 5 km in November 2019, January, and February 2020. A case analysis revealed that significant changes in aerosol properties including aerosol loading, aerosol particle size, aerosol type in central Australia could be caused during the BB period of 2019/2020 due to the long-range transport of biomass burning aerosols from eastern and southern Australia.

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Wildfire Smoke Highlights Troposphere‐to‐Stratosphere Pathway

Magaritz-Ronen

Raveh‐Rubin

2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Smoke from the Australian wildfires of December 2019-January 2020 reached the stratosphere and traveled over great distances, eventually covering the entire southern hemisphere (Hirsch & Koren, 2021;Ohneiser et al., 2020). The smoke was observed in the stratosphere but the pathway along which the smoke rose and entered the stratosphere remained unclear.The Australian fire season of 2019-2020 was extreme. Wildfires spread throughout the southeastern parts of the continent, starting in September 2019 (Boer et al., 2020), and were widespread by the beginning of January. The months preceding the outbreak of the fire were extremely dry, with above average temperatures. In many parts of Australia, the Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) showed the highest recorded levels since 1950 (Bureau of Meteorology, 2020). The fires led to 33 casualties and destroyed over 19 million hectares of forest (Boer et al., 2020;Filkov et al., 2020).The mass of smoke released during these fires was equivalent to a moderate volcanic eruption, and larger than any other wildfire in past decades (Khaykin et al., 2020). A smoke plume from such large wildfires is able to travel in a single layer over a great distance for a long time (

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TROPOMI Aerosol Products: Evaluation and Observations of Synoptic Scale Carbonaceous Aerosol Plumes during 2018–2020

Cited by 7 publications

References 15 publications

Smoke of extreme Australian bushfires observed in the stratosphere over Punta Arenas, Chile, in January 2020: optical thickness, lidar ratios, and depolarization ratios at 355 and 532 nm

Smoke of extreme Australian bushfires observed in the stratosphere over Punta Arenas, Chile, in January 2020: optical thickness, lidar ratios, and depolarization ratios at 355 and 532 nm

Statistical aerosol properties associated with fire events from 2002 to 2019 along with a case analysis in 2019 over Australia

Wildfire Smoke Highlights Troposphere‐to‐Stratosphere Pathway

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