Abstract
Boreal forest fires are currently recognized as a significant
factor in climate change and air quality problems. Although emissions of
biomass burning products are widely measured in many regions, there is still
lack of information on the composition of wildfire emissions in Siberia, a
region known for its severe wildfire activity. Emission ratios (ERs) are
important characteristics of wildfire emissions as they may be used to
calculate the mass of species emitted into the atmosphere due to combustion
of a known mass of biomass fuel. We analyze observations of carbon dioxide
(CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), methane (CH4), total
nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs), nitrogen oxides NOx
( = NO + NO2), particulate matter (PM3), and black carbon
(BC) within two forest fire plume transects made by the moving railway
observatory during TRanscontinental Observations Into the Chemistry of the
Atmosphere (TROICA) expeditions. Slopes in linear regressions of excess
levels of the pollutants are used to obtain
ERCO ∕ CO2 = 10–15 %,
ERCH4 ∕ CO = 8–10 %,
ERNMHC ∕ CO = 0.11–0.21 % ppmC ppmC−1,
ERNOx ∕ CO = 1.5–3.0 ppb ppm−1, ERPM3 ∕ CO = 320–385 ng m−3 (µg m−3)−1, and ERBC ∕ CO = 6.1–6.3 µg m−3 ppm−1, which fall within the range of uncertainty of the
previous estimates, being at the higher edge for ERCH4 ∕ CO, ERNMHC ∕ CO, and ERPM3 ∕ CO and at the lower edge for ERNOx ∕ CO. The relative
uncertainties comprise 5–15 % of the estimated ERCH4 ∕ CO,
ERNMHC ∕ CO, and ERPM ∕ CO and 10–20 % of
ERNOx ∕ CO,
ERCO ∕ CO2, and
ERBC ∕ CO. The uncertainties are lower than in
many other similar studies and associated mainly with natural variability of
wildfire emissions.
Citation
ID:
151126
Ref Key:
vasileva2017atmosphericemission