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| Titel |
Investigation of CO, C2H6 and aerosols over Eastern Canada during BORTAS 2011 using ground-based and satellite-based observations and model simulations |
| VerfasserIn |
Debora Griffin, Jonathan Franklin, Mark Parrington, Cynthia Whaley, Jason Hopper, Glen Lesins, Keith Tereszchuk, Kaley A. Walker, James R. Drummond, Paul Palmer, Kimberly Strong, Thomas J. Duck, Ihab Abboud, Lin Dan, Norm O'Neill, Cathy Clerbaux, Pierre Coheur, Peter F. Bernath, Edward Hyer, Jenny Kliever |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2013
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 15 (2013) |
| Datensatznummer |
250072130
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| Zusammenfassung |
| We present the results of total column measurements of CO and C2H6 and aerosol optical
depth (AOD) during the Quantifying the impact of BOReal forest fires on Tropospheric
oxidants over the Atlantic using Aircraft and Satellites (BORTAS-B) campaign over Eastern
Canada. Ground-based observations, using Fourier transform spectrometers (FTSs) and sun
photometers, were carried out in July and August 2011. They were taken in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, which is an ideal location to monitor the outflow of boreal fires from North
America, and in Toronto, Ontario. Measurements of enhanced fine mode AOD
were highly correlated with enhancements in coincident trace gas (CO and C2H6)
observations between 19 and 21 July 2011, which is typical for a smoke plume
event.
In this study, we will focus on the identification of the origin and the transport of this
smoke plume. We use back-trajectories calculated by the Canadian Meteorological Centre
(CMC) as well as FLEXPART forward-trajectories to demonstrate that the enhanced CO,
C2H6 and fine mode AOD seen near Halifax and Toronto did originate from forest fires in
Northwestern Ontario, that occurred between 17 and 19 July 2011. In addition, total column
measurements of CO from the satellite-borne Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer
(IASI) have been used to trace the smoke plume and to confirm the origin of the CO
enhancement. Furthermore, the emission ratio (ERC2H6-CO) and the emission factor
(EFC2H6) of C2H6 (with respect to the CO emission) were estimated from these
ground-based observations. The C2H6 emission results from boreal fires in Northwestern
Ontario agree well with C2H6 emission measurements from other boreal regions, and are
relatively high compared to other geographical regions. The ground-based CO and C2H6
observations were compared with output from the 3-D global chemical transport
model GEOS-Chem, using the inventory of the Fire Locating And Monitoring of
Burning Emissions (FLAMBE). Good agreement was found for the magnitude of
the enhancement of the total columns of CO between the measured and modelled
results; however, a small shift in time of approximately 6 h of the arrival of the
plume over Halifax is apparent between the results. The modeled C2H6 columns
are systematically lower than the observations from the ground-based FTSs. It is
possible that this difference between the model output and observations is due to the
extra-tropical (rather than specific boreal) fire emission ratio used in the GEOS-Chem
simulation, which seems to underestimate the C2H6 emission, derived from the
presented ground-based observations. This suggests that a finer categorization of
extra-tropical biomass burning is necessary and should be considered in future model
simulations. |
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