The long-term transport and radiative impacts of the 2017 British Columbia pyrocumulonimbus smoke aerosols in the stratosphere

Sampa Das,Luke D Oman,Peter R Colarco,Ghassan Taha,Omar Torres

doi:10.5194/acp-21-12069-2021

Abstract

Abstract. Interactions of meteorology with wildfires in British Columbia, Canada, during August 2017 led to three major pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) events that resulted in the injection of large amounts of smoke aerosols and other combustion products at the local upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). These plumes of UTLS smoke with elevated values of aerosol extinction and backscatter compared to the background state were readily tracked by multiple satellite-based instruments as they spread across the Northern Hemisphere (NH). The plumes were observed in the lower stratosphere for about 8–10 months following the fire injections, with a stratospheric aerosol e-folding time of about 5 months. To investigate the radiative impacts of these events on the Earth system, we performed a number of simulations with the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM). Observations from multiple remote-sensing instruments were used to calibrate the injection parameters (location, amount, composition and heights) and optical properties of the smoke aerosols in the model. The resulting simulations of three-dimensional smoke transport were evaluated for a year from the day of injections using daily observations from OMPS-LP (Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite Limb Profiler). The model-simulated rate of ascent, hemispheric spread and residence time (or e-folding time) of the smoke aerosols in the stratosphere are in close agreement with OMPS-LP observations. We found that both aerosol self-lofting and the large-scale atmospheric motion play important roles in lifting the smoke plumes from near the tropopause altitudes (∼ 12 km) to about 22–23 km into the atmosphere. Further, our estimations of the radiative impacts of the pyroCb-emitted smoke aerosols showed that the smoke caused an additional warming of the atmosphere by about 0.6–1 W/m2 (zonal mean) that persisted for about 2–3 months after the injections in regions north of 40∘ N. The surface experienced a comparable magnitude of cooling. The atmospheric warming is mainly located in the stratosphere, coincident with the location of the smoke plumes, leading to an increase in zonal mean shortwave (SW) heating rates of 0.02–0.04 K/d during September 2017.

Highlights

When convective smoke plumes from large wildfires are intercepted by favorable meteorological conditions, such as those that produce dry thunderstorms (Peterson et al, 2017), the formation of fire-triggered thunderstorms, called pyrocumulonimbus, can occur
Based on the new set of optical properties for brown carbon (BrC), we evaluated our simulated single-scattering albedo (SSA) for the pyroCb-sourced smoke mixture using the observations from multiwavelength ground-based lidars
We used the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) to model the emissions and three-dimensional evolution of the smoke aerosols emitted in the extreme pyroCb events that occurred in August 2017 over British Columbia (BrCo)

Summary

Introduction

When convective smoke plumes from large wildfires are intercepted by favorable meteorological conditions, such as those that produce dry thunderstorms (Peterson et al, 2017), the formation of fire-triggered thunderstorms, called pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb, Fromm et al, 2010), can occur. Unlike aerosols originating from volcanic eruptions that exert an overall cooling effect on the planet due to their predominantly scattering nature (Robock, 2000; Solomon et al, 2011; Vernier et al, 2011), the smoke aerosols from pyroCb events contain black and brown carbon (BC and BrC) particles that strongly absorb incoming solar radiation and warm the surrounding atmosphere. This atmospheric heating by smoke can lead to an overall positive or negative effect on the radiation balance at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) depending on the aerosol plume’s vertical location (Ban-Weiss et al, 2012), its mixing state (Jacobson, 2001) and the albedo of the underlying surfaces (Boucher et al, 2013; Keil and Haywood, 2003)

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