Quantifying CO emissions from the 2004 Alaskan wildfires using MOPITT CO data

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Read Full Article (file size: 306606 bytes) Cited by GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 32, L11809, doi:10.1029/2005GL022995, 2005 Quantifying CO emissions from the 2004 Alaskan wildfires using MOPITT CO data G. Pfister Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA P. G. Hess Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA L. K. Emmons Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA J.-F. Lamarque Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA C. Wiedinmyer Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA D. P. Edwards Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA G. Pétron Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA J. C. Gille Atmospheric Chemistry Division, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, USA G. W. Sachse NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia, USA Abstract We present an inverse model analysis to quantify the emissions of wildfires in Alaska and Canada in the summer of 2004 using carbon monoxide (CO) data from the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) remote sensing instrument together with the chemistry transport model MOZART (Model for Ozone and Related Chemical Tracers). We use data assimilation outside the region of the fires to optimally constrain the CO background level and the transport into that region. Inverse modeling is applied locally to quantify the fire emissions. Our a posteriori estimate of the wildfire emissions gives a total of 30 ± 5 Tg CO emitted during June–August 2004 which is of comparable order to the anthropogenic emissions for the continental US. The simulated CO fields have been evaluated by comparison with MOPITT and independent aircraft data. Received 15 March 2005; accepted 18 May 2005; published 14 June 2005. Index Terms: 0345 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Pollution: urban and regional (0305, 0478, 4251); 0368 Atmospheric Composition and Structure: Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry; 3315 Atmospheric Processes: Data assimilation; 3360 Atmospheric Processes: Remote sensing. Read Full Article (file size: 306606 bytes) Cited by Citation: Pfister, G., P. G. Hess, L. K. Emmons, J.-F. Lamarque, C. Wiedinmyer, D. P. Edwards, G. Pétron, J. C. Gille, and G. W. Sachse (2005), Quantifying CO emissions from the 2004 Alaskan wildfires using MOPITT CO data, Geophys. Res. Lett., 32, L11809, doi:10.1029/2005GL022995. Copyright 2005 by the American Geophysical Union.

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