Biomass Burning: Major Uncertainties, Advances, and Opportunities

Robert J Yokelson, University of Montana, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Missoula, United States, Chelsea Stockwell, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, United States, Patrick R Veres, NOAA Boulder, Boulder, United States, Lindsay E Hatch, Portland State University, Portland, OR, United States, Kelley C Barsanti, NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Modeling, Boulder, United States, Xiaoxi Liu, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States, L Gregory Huey, Georgia Institute of Technology Main Campus, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Atlanta, GA, United States, Thomas B Ryerson, NOAA Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, Jack E Dibb, University of New Hampshire, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, Durham, United States, Armin Wisthaler, University of Oslo, Department of Chemistry, Oslo, Norway, Markus Müller, University of Innsbruck, Institute for Ion Physics and Applied Physics, Innsbruck, Austria, Matthew James Alvarado, AER, Inc., Lexington, MA, United States, Sonia M Kreidenweis, Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Science, Fort Collins, United States, Allen L Robinson, Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, Owen B Toon, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO, United States, Jeff Peischl, NOAA ESRL, Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States and Ilana B Pollack, NOAA ESRL Chemical Sciences Division, Boulder, CO, United States
Abstract:
Domestic and open biomass burning are poorly-understood, major influences on Earth’s atmosphere composed of countless individual fires that (along with their products) are difficult to quantify spatially and temporally. Each fire is a minimally-controlled complex phenomenon producing a diverse suite of gases and aerosols that experience many different atmospheric processing scenarios. New lab, airborne, and space-based observations along with model and algorithm development are significantly improving our knowledge of biomass burning. Several campaigns provided new detailed emissions profiles for previously undersampled fire types; including wildfires, cooking fires, peat fires, and agricultural burning; which may increase in importance with climate change and rising population. Multiple campaigns have better characterized black and brown carbon and used new instruments such as high resolution PTR-TOF-MS and 2D-GC/TOF-MS to improve quantification of semi-volatile precursors to aerosol and ozone. The aerosol evolution and formation of PAN and ozone, within hours after emission, have now been measured extensively. The NASA DC-8 sampled smoke before and after cloud-processing in two campaigns. The DC-8 performed continuous intensive sampling of a wildfire plume from the source in California to Canada probing multi-day aerosol and trace gas aging. Night-time plume chemistry has now been measured in detail. Fire inventories are being compared and improved, as is modeling of mass transfer between phases and sub-grid photochemistry for global models.
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