The effect of atmospheric circulation on the evolution and radiative forcing of smoke aerosol over European Russia during the summer of 2010

Abstract

The evolution of smoke plume over European Russia (ER) during the massive forest and peatbog fires of summer 2010 has been studied using observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from MODIS instruments (both Aqua and Terra platforms), objective analysis of meteorological fields performed at the Russian Hydrometeorological Research Center, NCEP/NCAR reanalysis, as well as upper air data. A relation between the structure inhomogeneities of the AOD field and regional atmospheric circulation has been found. It is shown that, on August 5–9, 2010, the maximum of smoke pollution did complete turn around Moscow, while remaining at a distance of 200 to 650 km from the megacity. Both regionally averaged shortwave aerosol radiative forcings (ARFs) at the top and the bottom of the atmosphere are estimated for the period of extreme smoke pollution over ER. The spatial distributions of ARF values over the territory of the region and the estimates of the local and spatially distributed thermal effects of smoke aerosol are given. It is shown that, on August 5–9, 2010, the spatial distribution of AOD and the calculated thermal effects of smoke aerosol were in agreement with the spatial distributions of air-temperature anomalies observed in the lower 1.5-km layer of the atmosphere. MODIS’s AOD data obtained during the wildfires were validated by AOD observations from the CIMEL sun photometer operated at the AERONET station Zvenigorod.