Formation of ozone and growth of aerosols in young smoke plumes from biomass burning: 1. Lagrangian parcel studies

Abstract

We have developed a new model of the gas- and aerosol-phase chemistry of biomass burning smoke plumes called Aerosol Simulation Program (ASP). Here we use ASP combined with a Lagrangian parcel model to simulate the chemistry in smoke plumes from three fires: the Otavi savannah fire in Namibia, an Alaska boreal forest fire, and the Timbavati savannah fire. Our model explained the observations of ozone in the Otavi and Alaska plumes fairly well, but our initial model simulation of the Timbavati plume underestimated the concentrations of ozone, OH, and secondary aerosol matter. The Timbavati simulation agrees with observations if we increase OH to equal its observed levels. Heterogeneous reactions of NO2 and SO2 could explain the needed higher concentrations of OH and the rapid formation of ozone, nitrate, and sulfate in the smoke plume if the uptake coefficients on smoke aerosols are large (O(10−3) and O(10−4), respectively). Uncharacterized organic species in the smoke plume were likely responsible for the rapid formation of aerosol organic carbon. The changes in the aerosol size distribution were dominated by plume dilution and condensational growth. The single scattering albedo of the modeled smoke increases from 0.866 to 0.902 over 1 h of aging. The change in aerosol scattering with relative humidity for the modeled fresh smoke matches observations up to 66% RH, but the model greatly overestimates the humidification factor at 80% RH (2.88 versus an observed value of 1.70–1.79). For the aged smoke, the modeled humidification factor is 1.22, slightly below the observed value of 1.40.