Biomass burning emission estimates inferred from satellite column measurements of HCHO: Sensitivity to co-emitted aerosol and injection height

Gonzi, Siegfried; Palmer, Paul I.; Barkley, M. P.; Smedt, Isabelle De; Roozendaël, Michel Van

doi:10.1029/2011gl047890

Cited by 38 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Previous analysis of the atmospheric signature from biomass burning using spaceborne data has focused on CO using thermal IR sensors such as MOPITT with greatest sensitivity in the free troposphere, or short-lived trace gases such as formaldehyde measured by UV/Vis sensors that require a detailed knowledge of atmospheric chemistry (e.g. Gonzi et al, 2011b). An ideal mission concept would have a vertical resolution < 1 km in the lower and free troposphere and a ground-pixel size of 1 km or less, sufficient to capture expected variations in the land surface and in the atmosphere.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also include a 25 % uncertainty associated with the combined forward model and representation errors. The MAP algorithm described in a log-measurement space typically converges after a few iterations Gonzi et al (2011b).…”

Section: The Maximum a Posteriori (Map) Inverse Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a substantial body of previous work on estimating biomass burning emissions of gases and particles using spaceborne instruments with varying levels of success (e.g. Duncan et al, 2003;Martin et al, 2003;Ito and Penner, 2004;Kasischke and Penner, 2004;Freitas et al, 2005;Edwards et al, 2006;Hodzic et al, 2007;Jordan et al, 2008;Kopacz et al, 2009;Liousse et al, 2010;Gonzi et al, 2011b;Fleming et al, 2012;Ross et al, 2013), largely reflecting heterogeneous sampling due to cloud-and aerosol-contaminated observed scenes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying pyroconvective injection heights using observations of fire energy: sensitivity of spaceborne observations of carbon monoxide

et al. 2015

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Abstract. We use observations of active fire area and fire radiative power (FRP) from the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS), together with a parameterized plume rise model, to estimate biomass burning injection heights during 2006. We use these injection heights in the GEOS-Chem (Goddard Earth Observing System Chemistry) atmospheric chemistry transport model to vertically distribute biomass burning emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) and to study the resulting atmospheric distribution. For 2006, we use over half a million FRP and fire area observations as input to the plume rise model. We find that convective heat fluxes and active fire area typically lie in the range of 1-100 kW m −2 and 0.001-100 ha, respectively, although in rare circumstances the convective heat flux can exceed 500 kW m −2 . The resulting injection heights have a skewed probability distribution with approximately 80 % of the injections remaining within the local boundary layer (BL), with occasional injection height exceeding 8 km. We do not find a strong correlation between the FRPinferred surface convective heat flux and the resulting injection height, with environmental conditions often acting as a barrier to rapid vertical mixing even where the convective heat flux and active fire area are large. We also do not find a robust relationship between the underlying burnt vegetation type and the injection height. We find that CO columns calculated using the MODIS-inferred injection height (MODIS-INJ) are typically −9 to +6 % different to the control calculation in which emissions are emitted into the BL, with differences typically largest over the point of emission. After applying MOPITT (Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere) v5 scene-dependent averaging kernels we find that we are much less sensitive to our choice of injection height profile. The differences between the MOPITT and the model CO columns (max bias ≈ 50 %), due largely to uncertainties in emission inventories, are much larger than those introduced by the injection heights. We show that including a realistic diurnal variation in FRP (peaking in the afternoon) or accounting for subgrid-scale emission errors does not alter our main conclusions. Finally, we use a Bayesian maximum a posteriori approach constrained by MOPITT CO profiles to estimate the CO emissions but because of the inherent bias between model and MOPITT we find little impact on the resulting emission estimates. Studying the role of pyroconvection in the distribution of gases and particles in the atmosphere using global MOPITT CO observations (or any current spaceborne measurement of the atmosphere) is still associated with large errors, with the exception of a small subset of large fires and favourable environmental conditions, which will consequently lead to a bias in any analysis on a global scale.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Maximum a Posteriori (Map) Inverse Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying pyroconvective injection heights using observations of fire energy: sensitivity of spaceborne observations of carbon monoxide

et al. 2015

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“…Continental hot spots are consequence of the oxidation of short-lived NMVOCs from anthropogenic, biogenic, and pyrogenic origins as well as direct emissions from fires and industrial activities [127,33,70]. Due to its high reactivity it has a short tropospheric lifetime of few hours [9] making it a useful proxy for NMVOCs emissions in satellite observations and for the estimation of top-down emission inventories of isoprene [6,83].…”

Section: Trace Gas Column Measurementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropospheric emissions: Monitoring of pollution (TEMPO)

Zoogman

Liu

Suleiman

et al. 2017

Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer

296

144

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“…In particular, the air mass factor (AMF), which is required to convert slant column densities (SCDs) to vertical column densities (VCDs), depends on cloud properties, vertical profiles of HCHO, surface reflectance, aerosols, and observation geometry (solar and viewing zenith angles) (Palmer et al, 2001;Martin et al, 2002;Lee et al, 2009). Gonzi et al (2011) examined the sensitivity of AMF to the injection height and optical properties of aerosols for biomass burning emission constraints using HCHO satellite measurements. Leitão et al (2010) examined the aerosol effect on AMF calculation for satellite NO 2 observations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity of formaldehyde (HCHO) column measurements from a geostationary satellite to temporal variation of the air mass factor in East Asia

et al. 2017

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Abstract. We examine upcoming geostationary satellite observations of formaldehyde (HCHO) vertical column densities (VCDs) in East Asia and the retrieval sensitivity to the temporal variation of air mass factors (AMFs) considering the presence of aerosols. Observation system simulation experiments (OSSE) were conducted using a combination of a global 3-D chemical transport model (GEOS-Chem), a radiative transfer model (VLIDORT), and a HCHO retrieval algorithm developed for the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS), which will be launched in 2019. Application of the retrieval algorithm to simulated hourly radiances yields the retrieved HCHO VCDs, which are then compared with the GEOS-Chem HCHO VCDs as true values for the evaluation of the retrieval algorithm. In order to examine the retrieval sensitivity to the temporal variation of AMF, we examine three AMF specifications, AMF m , AMF h , and AMF mh , using monthly, hourly, and monthly mean hourly input data for their calculation, respectively. We compare the retrieved HCHO VCDs using those three AMFs and find that the HCHO VCDs with AMF h are in better agreement with the true values than the results using AMF mh and AMF m . AMF mh reflects diurnal variation of planetary boundary layer and other meteorological parameters, so that the results with AMF mh show a better performance than those with AMF m . The differences between AMF h and AMF m range from −0.76 to 0.74 in absolute value and are mainly caused by temporal changes in aerosol chemical compositions and aerosol vertical distributions, which result in −27 to 58 and −34 to 43 % changes in HCHO VCDs over China, respectively, compared to HCHO VCDs using AMF m . We apply our calculated AMF table together with OMI aerosol optical properties to OMI HCHO products in March 2006, when Asian dust storms occurred, and find −32 to 47 % changes in the retrieved HCHO columns due to temporal changes in aerosol optical properties in East Asia. The impact of aerosol temporal variability cannot be neglected for future geostationary observations.

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Biomass burning emission estimates inferred from satellite column measurements of HCHO: Sensitivity to co-emitted aerosol and injection height

Cited by 38 publications

References 32 publications

Quantifying pyroconvective injection heights using observations of fire energy: sensitivity of spaceborne observations of carbon monoxide

Quantifying pyroconvective injection heights using observations of fire energy: sensitivity of spaceborne observations of carbon monoxide

Tropospheric emissions: Monitoring of pollution (TEMPO)

Sensitivity of formaldehyde (HCHO) column measurements from a geostationary satellite to temporal variation of the air mass factor in East Asia

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