Quantifying black carbon deposition over the Greenland ice sheet from forest fires in Canada
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- Inst. Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL), Paris (France). Lab. Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS); Sorbonne Univ., Pierre and Marie Curie Campus (UPMC), Paris (France); Univ. of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) (France); Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Paris (France)
- US Army Corps of Engineers (ACE), Fort Wainwright, AK (United States). Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab. (CRREL); Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States)
- NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA (United States)
- Center for International Climate and Environmental Research-Oslo (CICERO) (Norway)
- Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (United States); NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
- National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
- Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
- Univ. of New Hampshire, Durham, NH (United States)
We identify an important Black Carbon (BC) aerosol deposition event that was observed in snow stratigraphy and dated to between 27 July 2013 – 2 August 2013. This event comprises a significant portion (~60%) of total deposition over a 10 month period (July 2013 – April 2014). Here we link this event to forest fires burning in Canada during summer 2013 using modeling and remote sensing tools. Aerosols were detected by both the CALIOP and MODIS instruments during transport between Canada and Greenland, confirming that this event involved emissions from forest fires in Canada. We use high-resolution regional chemical transport mod-eling (WRF-Chem) combined with high-resolution fire emissions (FINNv1.5) to study aerosol emissions, transport, and deposition during this event. The model accurately captures the timing of the BC deposition event and shows that the major contribution to deposition during this event is emissions originating from fires in Canada. However, the model under-predicts aerosol deposition compared to measurements at all sites by a factor of 2–100. Under-prediction of modeled BC deposition originates from uncertainties in fire emissions combined with uncertainties in aerosol scavenging by clouds. This study suggests that it is possible to describe the transport of an exceptional smoke event on regional and continental scales. Improvements in model descriptions of precipitation scavenging and emissions from wildfires are needed to correctly predict deposition, which is critical for determining the climate impacts of aerosols that originate from fires.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); GENCI (France)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830; ARC1203876; ARC1204145; NNX14AE72G; NNH15AZ74I; 2016-017141
- OSTI ID:
- 1390441
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-125266; KP1701000
- Journal Information:
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 44, Issue 15; ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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