Identification

Title

Ozone production from the 2004 North American boreal fires

Abstract

We examine the ozone production from boreal forest fires based on a case study of wildfires in Alaska and Canada in summer 2004. The model simulations were performed with the chemistry transport model, MOZART-4, and were evaluated by comparison with a comprehensive set of aircraft measurements. In the analysis we use measurements and model simulations of carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone (O₃) at the PICO-NARE station located in the Azores within the pathway of North American outflow. The modeled mixing ratios were used to test the robustness of the enhancement ratio ΔO₃/ΔCO (defined as the excess O₃ mixing ratio normalized by the increase in CO) and the feasibility for using this ratio in estimating the O₃ production from the wildfires. Modeled and observed enhancement ratios are about 0.25 ppbv/ppbv which is in the range of values found in the literature and results in a global net O₃ production of 12.9 ± 2 Tg O₃ during summer 2004. This matches the net O₃ production calculated in the model for a region extending from Alaska to the east Atlantic (9-11 Tg O3) indicating that observations at PICO-NARE representing photochemically well aged plumes provide a good measure of the O₃ production of North American boreal fires. However, net chemical loss of fire-related O₃ dominates in regions far downwind from the fires (e.g., Europe and Asia) resulting in a global net O₃ production of 6 Tg O₃ during the same time period. On average, the fires increased the O₃ burden (surface -300 mbar) over Alaska and Canada during summer 2004 by about 7-9% and over Europe by about 2-3%.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d77p8znb

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2006-12-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact