A23M-01:
AeroCOM Biomass Burning Emissions Experiment-Overview

Tuesday, 16 December 2014: 1:40 PM
Mariya M Petrenko1,2, Mian Chin1, Ralph A Kahn1 and Maria Val Martin3, (1)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (2)Oak Ridge Associated Universities Inc., Oak Ridge, TN, United States, (3)Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, United States
Abstract:
Biomass burning (BB) is one of the major sources of optically and chemically potent carbonaceous aerosols, gaseous aerosol precursors, and volatile organic compounds. It is, therefore, important to represent these emissions as accurately as possible in the global and regional models.

To correctly simulate BB emissions from a fire, the model needs two key inputs: emission source strength for the fire and the emission injection height. Based on pilot studies of injection height by M. Val Martin et al. (2010, 2012), and of source strength by M. Petrenko et al. (2012), we proposed an AeroCom-coordinated multi-model BB experiment. The core objectives of the experiment are:

  1. To inter-compare and quantify the accuracy and diversity of the AeroCom model simulated BB AOD using a common emissions inventory.
  2. To propose a region-by-region emission correction scheme based on the comparisons of model output with satellite snapshots of smoke-plume optical depth from the MODIS and MISR instruments. This will allow us to bring the widely used GFED v3 emissions inventory to the levels needed to improve model-observation comparisons.
  3. To test smoke injection height–emission intensity relationships used in global models against MISR multi-angle smoke-plume-height retrievals.

With the first stage of the BB experiment focused on the source strength, this talk will provide an update on development and testing the method of using satellite-measured aerosol optical depth snapshots to constrain BB aerosol emissions in the global models. The global datasets of fire-and-smoke events, observed by MISR and MODIS during 2006, 2007 and 2008, to be used for model-satellite comparisons, will also be described. These events were selected according to a number of criteria to be suitable for model-observation comparison at the scales of global model resolution.

In addition, we will showcase preliminary results of model inter-comparisons within the BB experiment, outline plans for future output analysis, and summarize the expected results of this experiment.

Back to: Aerosol Comparisons between Observations and Models II
Previous Abstract | Next Abstract >>