AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Fires can significantly increase surface ozone concentrations

In 2007, about 13 million acres burned across the United States, with California accounting for approximately 10% of the acres burned. Many of California's fires were ignited by broken power lines in fall 2007; severe drought, hot weather, and unusually strong Santa Ana winds helped to rapidly spread these fires. To quantify the impact of these fires on regional air quality, and in particular the creation of surface ozone by pollutants released by these fires, Pfister et al. (2008) analyzed observations of ozone concentrations during the fires with global chemistry transport model simulations. These simulations include synthetic tracers that provide information about the amount of ozone produced from the fires. The authors found that the global model fits well with local observations and that a clear increase in observed ozone is found when the model predicts a strong impact of pollution from the fires. This increase in ozone can elevate the frequency of ozone concentrations that exceed current U.S. health standards, potentially causing violations to air pollution codes also during photochemically less active seasons.

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