Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality
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 f...
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The University of Edinburgh
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ftunivedinburgh:oai:era.ed.ac.uk:1842/29536 2023-07-30T04:00:04+02:00 Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality Finch, Douglas Peter Palmer, Paul Nichol, Caroline Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) 2017-11-30 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29536 en eng The University of Edinburgh Finch, D. P., P. I. Palmer, and M. Parrington (2014). “Origin, variability and age of biomass burning plumes intercepted during BORTAS-B”. In: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 14 (24), pp. 13789–13800. DOI:10.5194/acp-14-13789-2014. Mackie, A. R., P. I. Palmer, J. M. Barlow, D. P. Finch, P. Novelli, L. Jaeglé, and L. Jaegl?? (2016). “Reduced Arctic air pollution due to decreasing European and North American emissions”. In: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 121 (14), pp. 8692–8700. DOI:10.1002/2016JD024923. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29536 air quality air pollution nitrogen oxides carbon monoxide soot forest fires North America BORTAS satellite data atmospheric chemistry Thesis or Dissertation Doctoral PhD Doctor of Philosophy 2017 ftunivedinburgh https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-13789-2014 2023-07-09T20:30:13Z 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 ... Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis Arctic Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA - University of Edinburgh) Canada Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 14 24 13789 13800 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA - University of Edinburgh) |
op_collection_id |
ftunivedinburgh |
language |
English |
topic |
air quality air pollution nitrogen oxides carbon monoxide soot forest fires North America BORTAS satellite data atmospheric chemistry |
spellingShingle |
air quality air pollution nitrogen oxides carbon monoxide soot forest fires North America BORTAS satellite data atmospheric chemistry Finch, Douglas Peter Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality |
topic_facet |
air quality air pollution nitrogen oxides carbon monoxide soot forest fires North America BORTAS satellite data atmospheric chemistry |
description |
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 ... |
author2 |
Palmer, Paul Nichol, Caroline Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) |
format |
Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis |
author |
Finch, Douglas Peter |
author_facet |
Finch, Douglas Peter |
author_sort |
Finch, Douglas Peter |
title |
Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality |
title_short |
Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality |
title_full |
Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality |
title_fullStr |
Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality |
title_full_unstemmed |
Impact of boreal biomass burning on North American air quality |
title_sort |
impact of boreal biomass burning on north american air quality |
publisher |
The University of Edinburgh |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29536 |
geographic |
Canada |
geographic_facet |
Canada |
genre |
Arctic |
genre_facet |
Arctic |
op_relation |
Finch, D. P., P. I. Palmer, and M. Parrington (2014). “Origin, variability and age of biomass burning plumes intercepted during BORTAS-B”. In: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 14 (24), pp. 13789–13800. DOI:10.5194/acp-14-13789-2014. Mackie, A. R., P. I. Palmer, J. M. Barlow, D. P. Finch, P. Novelli, L. Jaeglé, and L. Jaegl?? (2016). “Reduced Arctic air pollution due to decreasing European and North American emissions”. In: Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 121 (14), pp. 8692–8700. DOI:10.1002/2016JD024923. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/29536 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-14-13789-2014 |
container_title |
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics |
container_volume |
14 |
container_issue |
24 |
container_start_page |
13789 |
op_container_end_page |
13800 |
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1772810692039016448 |