Abstract
Ozone production from Canadian wildfires during June and July of 1995
Ozone production from Canadian wildfires during June and July of 1995
S. A. McKeen
Aeronomy Laboratory,
NOAA,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,
University of Colorado,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
G. Wotawa
Institute for Meteorology and Physics,
University for Agricultural Sciences,
Vienna,
Austria
D. D. Parrish
Aeronomy Laboratory,
NOAA,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
J. S. Holloway
Aeronomy Laboratory,
NOAA,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,
University of Colorado,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
M. P. Buhr
Sonoma Technology Inc.,
Petaluma,
California,
USA
G. Hübler
Aeronomy Laboratory,
NOAA,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,
University of Colorado,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
F. C. Fehsenfeld
Aeronomy Laboratory,
NOAA,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences,
University of Colorado,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
J. F. Meagher
Aeronomy Laboratory,
NOAA,
Boulder,
Colorado,
USA
During the summer of 1995, especially between June and mid July, extensive wildfires occurred throughout Canada, primarily
north of 55°N latitude. A previous report used aircraft and surface observations and tracer simulations to show these fires
strongly influenced CO concentrations as far south as 35°N in the central and eastern United States [
Wotawa and Trainer, 2000
]. This study extends those results by incorporating wildfire emissions estimates for CO, NOx, and nonmethane hydrocarbons into a three-dimensional photochemical transport model specifically designed to simulate ozone
photochemistry in the continental United States. The results of the model are compared to observations from four measurement
platforms deployed during the time period of interest: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration WP-3 aircraft observations
collected during the 1995 Southern Oxidants Study (SOS-95) field campaign; 12 eastern U.S. surface stations that measured
ozone, CO, and NOy; rural ozone measurements from the Aerometric Information Retrieval System network collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency; and daily ozonesondes obtained near Nashville, Tennessee, during SOS-95. Model performance, as determined by correlation
and bias with observations from these four platforms, is significantly improved for both O3 and CO when the Canadian fires are considered. Both observations and model results show enhanced O3 from air transported from the Northwest Territory. The model results imply that during the period of strongest fire influence
10 to 30 ppbv enhancement of O3 throughout a large region of the central and eastern United States was due to these fires. Modeled O3 increases are sensitive to the NOx/CO emission ratio assumed for the fires, which is highly uncertain and variable. A molar NOx/CO ratio of 0.007 yields model comparisons that are most consistent for O3 and ΔO3/ΔCO observations within aged fire plumes during SOS-95, and is also consistent with previously observed NOx/CO ratios from boreal fires. For this NOx/CO emission ratio, and considering the entire eastern United States, most of the O3 increase is associated with the NOx emitted directly by the fires and the photochemical O3 formation that occurs before the plumes actually reach the United States. However, the in situ oxidation of CO from the Canadian
fires with NOx emitted locally leads to significantly higher O3 increases for high-NOx-emitting regions that are limited by hydrocarbon availability. Thus O3 in urban areas, or any other region modified by nearby NOx sources, is more sensitive to long-range fires compared to less populated or polluted regions.
Published 19
July
2002.
Citation: McKeen, S. A., G. Wotawa, D. D. Parrish, J. S. Holloway, M. P. Buhr, G. Hübler, F. C. Fehsenfeld, and J. F. Meagher
(2002),
Ozone production from Canadian wildfires during June and July of 1995,
J. Geophys. Res.,
107(D14),
4192,
doi:10.1029/2001JD000697.