Detection of the long-range transport of wildfire pollution to the Arctic using a network of ground-based FTIR spectrometers, satellite observations and model result

• Main Authors: Lutsch, Erik, Conway, Stephanie, Strong, Kimberly, B. A. Jones, Dylan, Drummond, James R., Ortega, Ivan, Hannigan, James W., Makarova, Maria, Notholt, Justus, Blumenstock, Thomas, Sussmann, Ralf, Mahieu, Emmanuel, Kasai, Yasuko, Clerbaux, Cathy
• Other Authors: Department of Physics Toronto, University of Toronto, Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science Halifax, Dalhousie University Halifax, National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder (NCAR), St Petersburg State University (SPbU), Institute of Environmental Physics Bremen (IUP), University of Bremen, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institut für Meteorologie und Klimaforschung - Atmosphärische Umweltforschung (IMK-IFU), Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique Liège, Université de Liège, National Institute of Information and Communications Technology Tokyo, Japan (NICT), Spectroscopie de l'atmosphère, Service de Chimie Quantique et Photophysique, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), TROPO - LATMOS, Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS), Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ)-Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6 (UPMC)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2017
• Subjects: envir; geo; Arctic; Eureka; Greenland; Kiruna; Norway; Nunavut; Orleans; Thule; Alaska
• Online Access: https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01674371

International audience We present a multi-year time series of the total columns of carbon monoxide (CO), hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and ethane (C2H6) obtained by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectrometer measurements at nine sites. Six are high-latitude sites: Eureka, Nunavut; Ny Alesund, Norway; Thule, Greenland; Kiruna, Sweden; Poker Flat, Alaska and St. Petersburg, Russia and three are mid-latitude sites; Zugspitze, Germany; Jungfraujoch, Switzerland and Toronto, Ontario. For each site, the inter-annual trends and seasonal variabilities of the CO total column time series are accounted for, allowing ambient concentrations to be determined. Enhancements above ambient levels are then used to identify possible wildfire pollution events. Since the abundance of each trace gas species emitted in a wildfire event is specific to the type of vegetation burned and the burning phase, correlations of CO to the other long-lived wildfire tracers HCN and C2H6 allow for further confirmation of the detection of wildfire pollution. Back-trajectories from HYSPLIT and FLEXPART as well as fire detections from the Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer (MODIS) allow the source regions of the detected enhancements to be determined while satellite observations of CO from the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) and Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) instruments can be used to track the transport of the smoke plume. Differences in travel times between sites allows ageing of biomass burning plumes to be determined, providing a means to infer the physical and chemical processes affecting the loss of each species during transport. Comparisons of ground-based FTIR measurements to GEOS-Chem chemical transport model results are used to investigate these processes, evaluate wildfire emission inventories and infer the influence of wildfire emissions on the Arctic.