Estimating Biomass Burning Injection Heights using CALIOP, MODIS, and NASA Langley Trajectory Model: Focus on the Tripod Fire, Washington 2006

Abstract:

Biomass burning emissions have the potential to alter numerous land and atmospheric processes, which has strong implications for air quality and feedbacks within the climate system. Plume injection height influences plume transport characteristics, such as directly injected into the free troposphere, resulting the long-range transport. We developed a new method to estimate biomass burning plume injection heights with Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) aerosol data, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Fire Detection data, and the NASA Langley Trajectory model. We use CALIOP aerosol information to initialize aerosol-filled air parcels in the Trajectory model. Then, the trajectory model is run backwards until there is a coincidence between MODIS fire detections and smoke parcels. In this presentation, we focus on the Tripod fire, one of the largest fires in the lower 48 in recent US history for July-August 2006. We examine biomass burning injection heights of the Tripod fire and evaluate the modeled plume injection height with satellite derived observed plume height.