Brown Carbon Aerosol Absorption in Western Wildfires
Abstract
Wildfires are a major source of light-absorbing carbonaceous aerosol in the United States and globally. These aerosol are generally classified as black carbon (graphitic-like aerosol that absorbs broadly across the ultraviolet and visible spectral regions) or brown carbon (organic aerosol that absorbs strongly in the ultraviolet and near-visible spectral regions). The lifetime and chemical aging of brown carbon from wildfires are important, but poorly known.
We sampled wildfires in the Western U.S. during August 2019 on the NOAA Twin Otter aircraft as part of the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field campaign. We measured brown carbon absorption using a particle-into-liquid sampler coupled to a liquid waveguide capillary cell, and aerosol composition using a high-resolution aerosol mass spectrometer. We use these measurements to examine the evolution and lifetime of brown carbon absorption as a function of wildfire plume age.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.A23L2968W
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0322 Constituent sources and sinks;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE