Biomass burning and anthropogenic sources of CO over New England in the summer 2004

Abstract

During the summer of 2004 large wildfires were burning in Alaska and Canada, and part of the emissions were transported toward the northeast United States, where they were measured during the NEAQS‐ITCT 2k4 (New England Air Quality Study–Intercontinental Transport and Chemical Transformation) study on board the NOAA WP‐3 aircraft and the NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown. Using acetonitrile and chloroform as tracers the biomass burning and the anthropogenic fraction of the carbon monoxide (CO) enhancement are determined. As much as 30% of the measured enhancement is attributed to the forest fires in Alaska and Canada transported into the region, and 70% is attributed to the urban emissions of mainly New York and Boston. On some days the forest fire emissions were mixed down to the surface and dominated the CO enhancement. The results compare well with the FLEXPART transport model, indicating that the total emissions during the measurement campaign for biomass burning might be about 22 Tg. The total U.S. anthropogenic CO sources used in FLEXPART are 25 Tg. FLEXPART model, using the U.S. EPA NEI‐99 data, overpredicts the CO mixing ratio around Boston and New York in 2004 by about 50%.