On the Radiative Impact of Biomass-Burning Aerosols in the Arctic: The August 2017 Case Study

• Published in: Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Filippo Calì Quaglia, Daniela Meloni, Giovanni Muscari, Tatiana Di Iorio, Virginia Ciardini, Giandomenico Pace, Silvia Becagli, Annalisa Di Bernardino, Marco Cacciani, James W. Hannigan, Ivan Ortega, Alcide Giorgio di Sarra
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2022
• Subjects: biomass-burning (BB); wildfires; Arctic; aerosol radiative effect; aerosol heating rate; Science; Q; Canada; Greenland; Climate change; Thule
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14020313; https://doaj.org/article/4f429cd00ade4c87a73aaf2941ce58bc

Boreal fires have increased during the last years and are projected to become more intense and frequent as a consequence of climate change. Wildfires produce a wide range of effects on the Arctic climate and ecosystem, and understanding these effects is crucial for predicting the future evolution of the Arctic region. This study focuses on the impact of the long-range transport of biomass-burning aerosol into the atmosphere and the corresponding radiative perturbation in the shortwave frequency range. As a case study, we investigate an intense biomass-burning (BB) event which took place in summer 2017 in Canada and subsequent northeastward transport of gases and particles in the plume leading to exceptionally high values (0.86) of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at 500 nm measured in northwestern Greenland on 21 August 2017. This work characterizes the BB plume measured at the Thule High Arctic Atmospheric Observatory (THAAO; <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msup><mn>76.53</mn><mo>∘</mo></msup></mrow></semantics></math> N, <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msup><mn>68.74</mn><mo>∘</mo></msup></mrow></semantics></math> W) in August 2017 by assessing the associated shortwave aerosol direct radiative impact over the THAAO and extending this evaluation over the broader region ( <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msup><mn>60</mn><mo>∘</mo></msup></semantics></math> N– <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><msup><mn>80</mn><mo>∘</mo></msup></semantics></math> N, <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" ...