Abstract
We use the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) aboard the NASA Aura satellite to determine the concentrations of the trace gases ammonia (NH3) and formic acid (HCOOH) within boreal biomass burning plumes, and present the first detection of peroxy acetyl nitrate (PAN) and ethylene (C2H4) by TES. We focus on two fresh Canadian plumes observed by TES in the summer of 2008 as part of the Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites (ARCTAS-B) campaign. We use TES retrievals of NH3 and HCOOH within the smoke plumes to calculate their emission ratios (1.0% ± 0.5% and 0.31% ± 0.21%, respectively) relative to CO for these Canadian fires. The TES derived emission ratios for these gases agree well with previous aircraft and satellite estimates, and can complement ground-based studies that have greater surface sensitivity. We find that TES observes PAN mixing ratios of ~2 ppb within these mid-tropospheric boreal biomass burning plumes when the average cloud optical depth is low (<0.1) and that TES can detect C2H4 mixing ratios of ~2 ppb in fresh biomass burning smoke plumes.
Highlights
Biomass burning is the second largest source of trace gases to the global atmosphere and is an important part of the interannual variability of atmospheric composition [1,2,3]
We present the first Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) detections of peroxy acetyl nitrate (PAN), an important reservoir species of nitrogen oxides (NOx) that is formed chemically within biomass burning smoke plumes, and the first TES detection of ethylene (C2H4), a reactive hydrocarbon emitted by biomass burning
We have retrieved mixing ratios of ammonia (NH3) and formic acid (HCOOH) within biomass burning smoke plumes over Canada from TES radiance measurements. We have combined these retrievals with the TES retrievals of CO to calculate molar ratios of NH3 and HCOOH to CO within biomass burning plumes by calculating representative volume mixing ratios for NH3 and HCOOH and mapping the CO retrieval to the same vertical grid
Summary
Biomass burning is the second largest source of trace gases to the global atmosphere and is an important part of the interannual variability of atmospheric composition [1,2,3]. Aircraft and ground studies of biomass burning emissions can only sample a small number of fires infrequently, making it difficult to understand the impact that the regional variability of fuel type and combustion phase can have on biomass burning emissions. Satellite observations, with their extensive spatial and temporal coverage, provide the opportunity to sample a large number of fires in several different ecosystems, which will help to characterize the spatial and temporal variability of emissions within a region for use in models of atmospheric chemistry, air quality, and climate
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