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Chemical Tomography in a Fresh Wildland Fire Plume: a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) Study
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  • Siyuan Wang,
  • Matthew Mitchell Coggon,
  • Georgios I. Gkatzelis,
  • Carsten Warneke,
  • Ilann Bourgeois,
  • Thomas B. Ryerson,
  • Jeff Peischl,
  • Patrick R Veres,
  • J. Andrew Neuman,
  • Johnathan Hair,
  • Taylor Shingler,
  • Marta A Fenn,
  • Glenn S. Diskin,
  • L. Gregory Huey,
  • Young Ro Lee,
  • Eric C Apel,
  • Rebecca S. Hornbrook,
  • Alan J. Hills,
  • Samuel R Hall,
  • Kirk Ullmann,
  • Megan Marie Bela,
  • Michael K. Trainer,
  • Rajesh Kumar,
  • John Orlando,
  • Frank Flocke,
  • Louisa K. Emmons
Siyuan Wang
CIRES/NOAA/CSL

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Matthew Mitchell Coggon
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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Georgios I. Gkatzelis
Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH
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Carsten Warneke
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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Ilann Bourgeois
NOAA ESRL/CIRES
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Thomas B. Ryerson
NOAA ESRL
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Jeff Peischl
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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Patrick R Veres
NOAA ESRL, Boulder
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J. Andrew Neuman
CIRES and NOAA CSL
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Johnathan Hair
NASA Langley Research Center
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Taylor Shingler
NASA Langley
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Marta A Fenn
Science Systems and Applications, Inc
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Glenn S. Diskin
NASA Langley Research Center
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L. Gregory Huey
Georgia Inst of Techn.
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Young Ro Lee
Georgia Institute of Technology
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Eric C Apel
NCAR
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Rebecca S. Hornbrook
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Alan J. Hills
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Samuel R Hall
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Kirk Ullmann
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Megan Marie Bela
NOAA-ESRL
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Michael K. Trainer
NOAA Aeronomy Laboratory
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Rajesh Kumar
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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John Orlando
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Frank Flocke
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Louisa K. Emmons
National Center for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
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Abstract

Wildland fires involve complicated processes that are challenging to represent in chemical transport models. Recent airborne measurements reveal remarkable chemical tomography in fresh wildland fire plumes, which remain yet to be fully explored using models. Here we present a high-resolution large eddy simulation (LES) model coupled to chemistry to study the chemical evolution in fresh wildland fire plume. The model is configured for a large fire heavily sampled during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field campaign, and a variety of airborne measurements are used to evaluate the chemical heterogeneity revealed by the model. We show that the model captures the observed cross-transect variations of a number of compounds quite well, including ozone (O3), nitrous acid (HONO), and peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN), etc. The combined observational and modeling results suggest that the top and edges of fresh plume drive the photochemistry, while dark chemistry is also present but in the lower part of the plume. The model spatial resolution is shown to be very important as it may shift the chemical regime, leading to biases in O3 and NOx chemistry. Based on findings in this work, we speculate that the impact of small fires on air quality may be largely underestimated in models with coarse spatial resolutions.
27 Sep 2021Published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres volume 126 issue 18. 10.1029/2021JD035203