Using Satellite Information And Measurements From Ground-Based Monitors During The October 2017 Fires In Northern California To Construct High Resolution PM2.5 Maps
Abstract
California wildfires are dangerous, natural occurrences brought about by extremely dry summers and has evidently become an important topic for research due to health and economic impacts. Wildfires primarily emit fine particulate matter (PM), one of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard criteria pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act. Wildfire-PM with an aerodynamic diameter of 2.5 μm (PM2.5) and respiratory morbidity has been found to have a strong correlation (Cascio 2017). Wildfire-PM2.5 also accounted for 65% of the annual PM2.5 emissions in California (U.S. EPA 2014).
This study analyzes a wildfire complex consisting of the Atlas, Nuns, Tubbs, Pocket, and Redwood Valley fires in northern California that started on 8 October 2017. The PM2.5 concentrations at several of the 22 ground monitors in the Bay area were well above the 24 hour standard of 35 during 11th to 14th October. To estimate health risks at locations where ground-based monitors did not provide sufficient coverage we developed a method to improve the spatial resolution provided by the monitors. We first estimate the emissions from the fires by fitting concentration estimates from a Lagrangian dispersion model to corresponding concentrations from ground monitors. We also use a power law model to fit the measured PM2.5 concentrations to the AOD measured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), which is carried by NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites. Dispersion model estimates are then combined with estimates from the AOD model to compute ground-level concentrations at a resolution of 1 km. Kriged residuals between estimates from the combined model and measured PM2.5 concentrations are then added to obtain high resolution maps that can be used for exposure studies.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMGC13B..03D
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0230 Impacts of climate change: human health;
- GEOHEALTH;
- 4313 Extreme events;
- NATURAL HAZARDS