Impacts of Biomass Burning Smoke on Air Quality and Radiative Forcing and Climate

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Aerosols".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (5 August 2020) | Viewed by 7722

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Division of Atmospheric Sciences, Desert Research Institute (DRI), Reno, NV, USA
Interests: optical and physical properties of biomass burning and mineral dust aerosols

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We invite researchers to contribute original research articles and review articles dealing with all aspects of the impact of biomass-burning smoke on air quality and radiative forcing and climate. We are interested in recent laboratory, field, remote sensing, and modeling work to understand and quantify the impacts of biomass-burning on local and global air quality and radiative forcing and climate. We are also interested in reviews that identify possible future lines of investigations. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Speciated smoke emissions and chemistry (e.g., O3 and secondary organic aerosol formation) from recent laboratory and field campaigns;
  • Addressing the differences in smoke aging and SOA formation seen in laboratory (e.g., smog chamber or oxidation flow reactor) and field studies;
  • Atmospheric chemistry and air quality in urban areas when biomass-burning smoke mixes with anthropogenic emissions;
  • Impact of biomass-burning smoke on indoor air quality;
  • Direct, semi-direct, and indirect effects of biomass-burning aerosols on radiative forcing and climate at regional and global scales, including after deposition on high albedo surfaces (e.g., snow and ice);
  • Identifying and quantifying the impacts of biomass-burning smoke using satellite-, aircraft-, UAS-, and ground-based remote sensing;
  • Application of statistical approaches and machine learning to quantify biomass-burning impacts and develop empirical models;
  • Modeling studies that bridge the gap between laboratory, plume-scale, and urban-, regional-, and global scale studies;
  • Smoke chemistry model inter-comparisons, especially those comparing physical and statistical models; and
  • Estimates of the human health and economic impacts of biomass-burning smoke.

Dr. Hans Moosmüller
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Biomass-burning smoke emissions and chemistry
  • Radiative forcing and climate impacts of biomass burning
  • Air quality impacts of biomass burning
  • Laboratory and field studies of biomass-burning smoke
  • Remote sensing of smoke
  • Multi-scale air quality modeling
  • Statistical modeling and machine learning

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 1706 KiB  
Article
Emissions from the Open Laboratory Combustion of Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum)
by Megan Rennie, Vera Samburova, Deep Sengupta, Chiranjivi Bhattarai, W. Patrick Arnott, Andrey Khlystov and Hans Moosmüller
Atmosphere 2020, 11(4), 406; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11040406 - 19 Apr 2020
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3385
Abstract
Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum) is a highly invasive species in the Great Basin of the Western USA that is increasing the frequency and intensity of wildland fires. Though cheatgrass plays a significant role in the fire ecology of the Great Basin, very [...] Read more.
Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum) is a highly invasive species in the Great Basin of the Western USA that is increasing the frequency and intensity of wildland fires. Though cheatgrass plays a significant role in the fire ecology of the Great Basin, very little is known about its combustion emissions. The fresh smoke from 16 open laboratory burns of cheatgrass was analyzed using real-time measurements and filter analysis. We presented measured intensive optical properties of the emitted smoke, including absorption Ångström exponent (AAE), scattering Ångström exponent (SAE), single scattering albedo (SSA), and other combustion properties, such as modified combustion efficiency (MCE) and fuel-based emission factors (EFs). In addition, we gave a detailed chemical analysis of polar organic species in cheatgrass combustion emissions. We presented EFs that showed a large variation between fuels and demonstrated that analysis of combustion emissions for specific fuels was important for studying and modeling the chemistry of biomass-burning emissions. Full article
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Review

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23 pages, 393 KiB  
Review
Criteria-Based Identification of Important Fuels for Wildland Fire Emission Research
by Adam C. Watts, Vera Samburova and Hans Moosmüller
Atmosphere 2020, 11(6), 640; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos11060640 - 16 Jun 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3807
Abstract
Studies of the emissions from wildland fires are important for understanding the role of these events in the production, transport, and fate of emitted gases and particulate matter, and, consequently, their impact on atmospheric and ecological processes, and on human health and wellbeing. [...] Read more.
Studies of the emissions from wildland fires are important for understanding the role of these events in the production, transport, and fate of emitted gases and particulate matter, and, consequently, their impact on atmospheric and ecological processes, and on human health and wellbeing. Wildland fire emission research provides the quantitative information needed for the understanding and management of wildland fire emissions impacts based on human needs. Recent work to characterize emissions from specific fuel types, or those from specific areas, has implicitly been driven by the recognition of the importance of those fuel types in the context of wildland fire science; however, the importance of specific fuels in driving investigations of biomass-burning emissions has not been made explicit thus far. Here, we make a first attempt to discuss the development and application of criteria to answer the question, “What are the most important fuels for biomass-burning emissions investigations to inform wildland fire science and management?” Four criteria for fuel selection are proposed: “(1) total emissions, (2) impacts, (3) availability and uncertainty, and (4) potential for future importance.” Attempting to develop and apply these criteria, we propose a list of several such fuels, based on prior investigations and the body of wildland-fire emission research. Full article
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