Observations of Ice Nucleating Particles in the Free Troposphere From Western US Wildfires

Abstract

AbstractWildfires in the western United States are large sources of particulate matter, and the area burned by wildfires is predicted to increase in the future. Some particles released from wildfires can affect cloud formation by serving as ice‐nucleating particles (INPs). INPs have numerous impacts on cloud radiative properties and precipitation development. Wildfires are potentially important sources of INPs, as indicated from previous measurements, but their abundance in the free troposphere has not been quantified. The Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption, and Nitrogen campaign sampled free tropospheric immersion‐freezing INPs from smoke plumes near their source and downwind, along with widespread aged smoke. The results indicate an enhancement of INPs in smoke plumes relative to out‐of‐plume background air, but the magnitude of enhancement was both temperature and fire dependent. The majority of INPs were inferred to be predominately organic in composition with some contribution from biological sources at modest super cooling, and contributions from minerals at deeper super cooling. A fire involving primarily sagebrush shrub land and aspen forest fuels had the highest INP concentrations measured in the campaign, which is partially attributed to the INP characteristics of lofted, uncombusted plant material. Electron microscopy analysis of INPs also indicated tar balls present in this fire. Parameterization of the plume INP data on a per‐unit‐aerosol surface area basis confirmed that smoke is not an efficient source of INPs. Nevertheless, the high numbers of particles released from, and ubiquity of western US wildfires in summertime, regionally elevate INP concentrations in the free troposphere.