Perturbation of the European free troposphere aerosol by North American forest fire plumes during the ICARTT-ITOP experiment in summer 2004

During the ICARTT-ITOP Experiment in summer 2004 plumes from large wildfires in North America were transported to Central Europe at 3–8 km altitude above sea level (a.s.l.). These plumes were studied with the DLR (Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt) research aircraft Falcon which was equipped with an extensive set of in situ aerosol and trace gas instruments. Analyses by the Lagrangian dispersion model FLEXPART provided source regions, transport times and horizontal extent of the fire plumes. Results from the general circulation model ECHAM/MADE and data from previous aerosol studies over Central Europe provided reference vertical profiles of black carbon (BC) mass concentrations for year 2000 conditions with forest fire activities below the long-term average. Smoke plume observations yielded a BC mass fraction of total aerosol mass with respect to PM 2.5 of 2–8%. The ratio of BC mass to excess CO was 3–7.5 mg BC (g CO)−1. Even after up to 10 days of atmospheric transport, both characteristic properties were of the same order as for fresh emissions. This suggests an efficient lifting of BC from forest fires to higher altitudes with only minor scavenging removal of particulate matter. Maximum aerosol absorption coefficient values were 7–8 Mm−1 which is about two orders of magnitude above the average European free tropospheric background value. Forest fire aerosol size distributions were characterised by a strong internally mixed accumulation mode centred at modal diameters of 0.25–0.30 µm with an average distribution width of 1.30. Nucleation and small Aitken mode particles were almost completely depleted.

Schlagwörter

Fachgebiet (DDC)

Projekt

Veranstaltung

Startdatum der Ausstellung

Enddatum der Ausstellung

Startdatum der Konferenz

Enddatum der Konferenz

Datum der letzten Prüfung

ISBN

ISSN

1680-7324
1680-7316

Sprache

Englisch

Während FHNW Zugehörigkeit erstellt

Nein

Zukunftsfelder FHNW

Publikationsstatus

Veröffentlicht

Begutachtung

Peer-Review der ganzen Publikation

Open Access-Status

Gold

Lizenz

Zitation

PETZOLD, Andreas, Bernadett WEINZIERL, Heidi HUNTRIESER, Andreas STOHL, Elsa REAL, Julie COZIC, Markus FIEBIG, Johannes HENDRICKS, Axel LAUER, Kathy LAW, A. ROIGER, H. SCHLAGER und Ernest WEINGARTNER, 2007. Perturbation of the European free troposphere aerosol by North American forest fire plumes during the ICARTT-ITOP experiment in summer 2004. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. 2007. Bd. 7, Nr. 19, S. 5105–5127. DOI 10.5194/acp-7-5105-2007. Verfügbar unter: https://doi.org/10.26041/fhnw-9765

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