A Collection of Airborne Measurements and Analyses of Trace Gases Emitted From Multiple Fires in California

Abstract

AbstractBiomass burning is an important source of trace gases and particles, and can influence air quality on local, regional, and global scales. With the threat of wildfire events increasing due to changes in land use, increasing population, and climate change, the importance of characterizing wildfire emissions is vital. In this work we characterize trace gas emissions from 12 wildfires and 1 prescribed fire in California between 2013 and 2017, in some cases with multiple measurements performed during different burn periods of a specific fire. Airborne measurements of carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, formaldehyde, water vapor, temperature, and three‐dimensional winds were made by the Alpha Jet Atmospheric eXperiment and have been published at NASA's Atmospheric Science Data Center (https://doi.org/10.5067/ASDC/AJAX/wildfire, Iraci et al., 2021). The majority of these measurements were made as close as possible to each fire and represent fresh emissions from known fire sources. This set of observations from 13 different fires offers the opportunity to explore trace gas emissions over a range of meteorology, fire conditions, and to a lesser extent, vegetation type and drought, and adds to the body of knowledge collected by other investigators and field campaigns.