Massive ozone production from South American wild fires observed during SOUTHTRAC

Autor: Peter Hoor, Daniel Kunkel, Lachnitt Hans-Christoph, Bozem Heiko, Bense Vera, Smoydzin Linda, Riese Martin, Zahn Andreas, Ziereis Helmut
Rok vydání: 2023
DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu23-3544
Popis: During the SOUTHTRAC mission, which took place in September and November 2019, the Germanresearch aircraft HALO performed several cross sections from the equator to the southern tip ofsouth America. The flight legs were flown along the coast of Brazil at typical altitudes of 13-14 km.During the northbound flight on October, 7th 2019 massive enhancements of pollutants wereobserved at these altitudes. Notably, in-situ observations show continuously elevated CO valuesexceeding 200 ppbv over a flight distance of more than 1000 km. These massive enhancements wereaccompanied by strongly elevated NO and NOy as well as CO2 and could be attributed to the large firesin South America during this time. These fires occurred in conjunction with convection overArgentina and Brazil, which led to efficient vertical transport. Lagrangian and chemical model analysisconfirmed the potential impact of convection and biomass burning to the observed enhancements ofozone and pollutants.Comparing the tracer observations to previous flights in exactly the same region three weeks earlier,we could estimate the ozone production due to the biomass burning. Weestimate an ozone production in the polluted air masses of almost 30%of the observed ozone mixing ratio. Given the large extent of the polluted area over 15 degrees oflatitude this may have an impact on the local energy budget of the tropopause region.
Databáze: OpenAIRE