Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality

• Published in: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
• Main Author: Finch, Douglas Peter
• Other Authors: Palmer, Paul, Nichol, Caroline, Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: The University of Edinburgh 2017
• Subjects: air quality; air pollution; nitrogen oxides; carbon monoxide; soot; forest fires; North America; BORTAS; satellite data; atmospheric chemistry; Canada; Arctic
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29536

Understanding the quality of the air we breathe is critical in quantifying the impact that atmospheric chemistry has on health. Poor air quality increases the risk of heart and lung diseases as well as having a detrimental effect on climate, ecology and the built environment. The burning of fossil fuels and plant matter (biomass burning) creates large quantities of gases and particulate matter that impact air quality and the air we breathe. Biomass burning is estimated to contribute 400 Tg of non-methane organic compounds, 40 Tg of methane and 7.1 Tg of nitrogen oxides to the atmosphere each year. This thesis aims to better understand the role of biomass burning on air quality and tropospheric chemistry. The in depth analysis presented here addresses of the impact of boreal biomass burning in North America on air quality, in particular, carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3). By using a number of different modelling techniques along with data collected from a field campaign and satellites the transport and chemistry of biomass burning emissions were analysed and quantified. The first research chapter of the thesis used the GEOS-Chem atmospheric chemistry transport model to interpret aircraft measurements of CO in biomass burning outflow taken during the 2011 BORTAS-B campaign over Canada. The model has some skill reproducing the observed variability, but has a positive bias for observations <100 ppb and a negative bias for observations >300 ppb. It was found that observed CO variations are largely due to fires over Ontario, with smaller and less variable contributions from fossil fuel combustion from eastern Asia and NE North America. To help interpret observed variations of CO an effective physical age of emissions (¯A) metric was developed. It was found that during BORTAS-B the age of emissions intercepted over Halifax, Nova Scotia is typically 4–11 days, and on occasion as young as two days.The analysis shows that ¯A is typically 1–5 days older than the associated photochemical ages inferred from ...