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DOE OSTI2020

A Mineralogy–Based Anthropogenic Combustion–Iron Emission Inventory

Atmospheric supply of iron can modulate ocean biogeochemistry, due to its key role in global nitrogen and carbon cycles. Current estimates predict up to 20% of global ocean net primary productivity depends on an atmospheric iron source. Using a technology–based methodology, we revise total and soluble anthropogenic iron emissions and resolve iron into its mineral components, which allows modeling mineral–specific atmospheric reactions. We compare different methodologies for representing anthropogenic iron solubility: measured in mild and strong leaches and estimated using a mineralogy basis and identify the emissions that are most affected by such assumptions. The inclusion of metal smelting as an iron source increases iron emissions by up to 10 times higher in the fine aerosol fraction (smaller than 1 μm) than most previous inventories. Different solubility assumptions alter anthropogenic soluble iron emissions and deposition by a factor of 20 and 10, respectively. Using solubilities measured in mild leaches and calculated by mineralogy give 20–30 Gg/yr anthropogenic emissions and 40–50 Gg/yr deposition, while those measured in strong leaches give 80–440 Gg/yr emissions and 200–450 Gg/yr deposition. Here, this range of anthropogenic soluble iron deposition leads to global soluble iron deposition of 1,900–2,300 Gg/yr when dust, wildfires, and atmospheric processing are included, indicating such assumptions can affect global soluble iron supply by about 30%. In regions where marine primary productivity is iron limited, anthropogenic combustion–iron contributes up to half of the atmospheric soluble iron flux to the North Pacific Ocean but supplies less than 5% to the Southern Ocean.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2020

Development of a mineralogy-based anthropogenic combustion-iron emission inventory

Atmospheric supply of iron can modulate ocean biogeochemistry, due to its key role in global nitrogen and carbon cycles. Using a detailed technology-based methodology we revise total and soluble anthropogenic iron emissions and resolve iron into its mineral components, which allows modeling mineral-specific atmospheric reactions. The inclusion of metal smelting as an iron source, increases fine iron aerosol emissions (smaller than 1 µm) compared with most previous inventories. Different assumptions about solubility lead to estimates of 40-450 Gg/year deposition of soluble anthropogenic iron. When combined with dust and wildfires, the global total anthropogenic soluble iron deposition is 1900-2300 Gg/yr, so assumptions in anthropogenic inventories can affect estimates of global soluble iron supply by about 30%. In regions where marine primary productivity is iron-limited, anthropogenic combustion-iron contributes up to half of the atmospheric soluble iron flux to North Pacific Ocean.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Aircraft Measurements from a U.S. Western Wildfire Demonstrating Day and Night Differences in the Chemical Composition and Optical Properties of Biomass Burning Aerosols and Their Atmospheric Evolution

The composition and transformations of biomass burning aerosols (BBA) have been measured onboard the NOAA Twin Otter research aircraft during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality field study. Here, we analyze real-time aerosol mass spectrometry measurements across three flights during the afternoon, late afternoon, and night of August 28, 2019, for one midsized wildfire. Analysis of several metrics showed that the aerosol composition and optical properties varied depending on the burning conditions at the fire zone and the time of day the BBA was emitted, with substantial variations in the available sunlight. The total aerosol mass loadings were dominated by organic components with a much smaller contribution from inorganic species. A gradual buildup of organic material was observed during the afternoon as the plume aged, indicating the condensation of photochemically formed low-volatility oxidized organic compounds. Highly hygroscopic ammonium nitrate was the main inorganic component, suggesting potential water content in BBA particles and the likelihood of their aqueous-phase reactivity. Depletions of particle-phase NO 3 – and Cl – relative to carbon monoxide were observed in the late afternoon and nighttime plumes, respectively, aligning with known gas-particle partitioning thermodynamics and the heterogeneous chemistry of dissolved nitrate and chloride. The wavelength-dependent light absorption by aerosol species was higher for the plume sampled at night and showed no significant changes with plume age, despite observed trends in composition and mass downwind. These differences in particle composition and optical properties demonstrate that the processes involved in BBA aging are not uniform for the same wildfire over the course of the day and depend highly on when the BBA was emitted, as well as the burning phase at the emissions source.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2020

Impacts of Wildfire Aerosols on Global Energy Budget and Climate: The Role of Climate Feedbacks

Aerosols emitted from wildfires could significantly affect global climate through perturbing global radiation balance. In this study, the Community Earth System Model with prescribed daily fire aerosol emissions is used to investigate fire aerosols’ impacts on global climate with emphasis on the role of climate feedbacks. The total global fire aerosol radiative effect (RE) is estimated to be -0.78 ± 0.29 W m -2 , which is mostly from shortwave RE due to aerosol–cloud interactions (REaci; -0.70 ± 0.20 W m -2 ). The associated global annual-mean surface air temperature (SAT) change ΔT is -0.64 ± 0.16 K with the largest reduction in the Arctic regions where the shortwave REaci is strong. Associated with the cooling, the Arctic sea ice is increased, which acts to reamplify the Arctic cooling through a positive ice-albedo feedback. The fast response (irrelevant to ΔT) tends to decrease surface latent heat flux into atmosphere in the tropics to balance strong atmospheric fire black carbon absorption, which reduces the precipitation in the tropical land regions (southern Africa and South America). The climate feedback processes (associated with ΔT) lead to a significant surface latent heat flux reduction over global ocean areas, which could explain most (~80%) of the global precipitation reduction. The precipitation significantly decreases in deep tropical regions (5°N) but increases in the Southern Hemisphere tropical ocean, which is associated with the southward shift of the intertropical convergence zone and the weakening of Southern Hemisphere Hadley cell. Such changes could partly compensate the interhemispheric temperature asymmetry induced by boreal forest fire aerosol indirect effects, through intensifying the cross-equator atmospheric heat transport.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2024

Additional Aviation Sustainability Strategies

Emissions from the aviation sector are expected to grow significantly in the next few decades due to growing demand for aviation. The U.S. fleet size has increased significantly in the past 20 years, growing from 2,132 aircraft to 5,485 aircraft. Similarly from 1990 to 2019, aviation emissions more than doubled, growing faster than any other transportation mode. These emissions include carbon dioxide (CO2), as well as non-CO2 sources including nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxide (SO2), water (H2O), and particulate matter (soot). However, this report focuses specifically on CO2 emissions because the impacts from CO2 are well-understood and long-lived. There are also many climate goals tied to CO2 emissions, including the US Aviation Climate Action Plan which is pushing for net-zero in 2050. CO2 is a greenhouse, or heat-trapping, gas that comes from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, from wildfires, and natural processes like volcanoes. Greenhouse gases absorb heat radiating from the Earth’s surface and release it in all directions, including back toward Earth’s surface. By adding more CO2 to the atmosphere, humans amplify the natural greenhouse effect, causing global temperature to rise. Since the onset of industrial times in 1750, human activities have raised atmospheric CO2 by 50%. Considering this challenge, the United States has set a climate goal to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions in the U.S. aviation sector by 2050 to reduce the environmental impact of aviation. Net-zero emissions refers to the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as CO2, methane or SO2, that are removed from the atmosphere being equal to those emitted by human activity. This contrasts with carbon-neutrality, which refers to no net release of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, especially through offsetting emissions, that could be accomplished through a series of actions. As of 2022, the goal of net-zero has been adopted by much of the aviation industry including multiple airlines and countries. To reach net-zero by 2050, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) are identified as the technology that could provide the greatest impact within this timeframe. However, certain challenges may limit the production and/or adoption of SAFs in the marketplace, such as competition for feedstocks, production capacity, and high cost. In this case, SAFs would be insufficient to meet the net-zero CO2 emission goals. Therefore, in addition to SAFs, other strategies will be needed to close the gap on emissions produced as a result of SAF shortfalls or to enhance the impact of SAFs on reducing emissions. NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) aims to examine these additional pathways to explore how its research may best contribute to the realization of net-zero emissions by 2050. Specifically, this effort considers strategies that can reduce emissions in the aviation sector in combination with the use of SAFs and carbon offsets while still meeting projected passenger demand. The strategies considered are not only feasible but also could be operationally scalable by 2050. The goal of this report is to investigate additional strategies such as alternative flight and ground operations, providing insight into the CO2 emission reduction potential and feasibility of strategy implementation by 2050.

Carbon Emissions↗

DOE OSTI2024

Direct Air Capture and Utilization System (DACUS): FEED Study of CarbonCapture Inc. DAC and CarbonCure Utilization Technologies Using United States Steel’s Gary Works Plant Waste Heat

The effects of climate change are drastically perceived through the alarming rates of severe events such as flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, global temperature rise, sea-level rise, and ocean acidification etc., which has prompted the nations across the globe to control & reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, by massive adoption of electric vehicles, switching to renewal energy sources and promoting sustainable green products. However, recent climate studies have shown that such efforts will not be enough to keep the global temperature rising under 1.5° Celsius by the year 2050, which lead to the development of multiple Direct Air Capture (DAC) technologies. A DAC system extracts CO2 directly from the atmosphere, which is either stored underground for long term or utilized in other processes. The DACUS proposed at U.S. Steel Corporation’s Gary Works Plant in Gary, Indiana, will include an innovative DAC technology from CarbonCapture Inc. (CCI), which will be collocated and powered by waste heat from the steel plant to capture CO2 from ambient air, and CarbonCure CO2 utilization technology- which is a commercial technology that is already installed and in use by early adopters in more than 150 concrete mixing plants across North America and Asia. The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign spearheaded this Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) study project, which was funded by US Department of Energy (DOE), aimed at designing a state-of-the art DACU system that can remove minimum of 5,000 tonne/year net CO2 from air (based on cradle-to-gate LCA) and converting the captured CO2 into low carbon intensity products. The off takers of the low Carbon product produced by the DACUS have also been identified near the steel plant in the Indiana, Illinois & Wisconsin Region. This creates a full CO2 value chain and provides a means to assess the impact of this holistic approach on job creation, regional economic impact, and environmental justice. DACUS is a promising new technology for reducing greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Operation costs are minimized by locating CCI’s innovative DAC collector at United States Steel's Gary Works site where waste heat is utilized. Carbon emissions are minimized in CO2 transportation. The captured CO2 will be permanently sequestered in concrete used as construction material. This DOE funded FEED study demonstrates a full CO2 value chain for a DACU system, supported by an industrial facility. If this project were constructed, it would have a very positive and lasting impact on both the environment and the community.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Peatland fires in Alaska will double by the end of the century

During recent summers, warm and dry conditions have increased the occurrence of wildfires and potentially peat-fires across Alaska. Limitations in resolving the fine-scale distribution of peatlands and climate observations have constrained our ability to accurately predict peat-fire dynamics. Using a new high-resolution peatland map of Alaska, we evaluated the climate and environmental controls of past and future peat-fire activity. Ensemble machine learning models identified reduced soil moisture, higher temperatures, and evapotranspiration as key predictors of annual total burned peatland area (tenfold CV R 2 = 0.62, RMSE = 221.1 km 2 ). By the end of the twenty-first century, models forced with climate datasets from representative concentration pathways (RCPs) 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5 emission scenarios project a statewide doubling of burned peatlands (increasing 61–121%), with regional increases ranging from 25–165% in polar, 61–95% in boreal, and 102–106% in maritime ecoregions. These projections indicate that wildfires will progressively encroach further into organic-rich moist and wet peaty soils, potentially amplifying soil carbon release across Alaska.

climate-change ecology↗

DOE OSTI2021

America Resilient Climate Conference

On April 14, 2021, scientists, policymakers, and other interested parties from research institutes, academia, and other organizations gathered together virtually at the America Resilient Climate Conference to discuss one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century: building resilience to climate change. Climate change affects the security and health of all Americans. Coastal areas are enduring more frequent and severe flooding due to sea level rise and storm surge; western states and Alaska have experienced increasingly devastating wildfires, driven in part by hotter, drier, and longer fire seasons; and communities across the nation have suffered through extreme precipitation events and heat waves. Even if emissions are reduced aggressively in the near future, the world—and the United States—will continue to feel the impacts of climate change for decades to come, due to the continued accumulation of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. Consequently, it is essential to act now to protect natural and human assets from the gradual—as well as extreme—impacts of a changing climate. To build resilient communities, leaders and community members need science-based information about the potential impacts climate change will have decades into the future and for specific regions. Therefore, it is essential to develop high-resolution climate models that can project both various climate impacts and the interactions between earth system variables and humans down to regional and local scales. Collecting and curating data for such models and their computational requirements poses large challenges. In the future, artificial intelligence will be needed to increase their accuracy and reduce associated uncertainties. The investments in Earth system science and artificial intelligence made by the U.S. Department of Energy and other federal entities will be essential in addressing these challenges.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

AttentionFire_v1.0: interpretable machine learning fire model for burned-area predictions over tropics

Abstract. African and South American (ASA) wildfires account for more than 70 % of global burned areas and have strong connection to local climate for sub-seasonal to seasonal wildfire dynamics. However, representation of the wildfire–climate relationship remains challenging due to spatiotemporally heterogenous responses of wildfires to climate variability and human influences. Here, we developed an interpretable machine learning (ML) fire model (AttentionFire_v1.0) to resolve the complex controls of climate and human activities on burned areas and to better predict burned areas over ASA regions. Our ML fire model substantially improved predictability of burned areas for both spatial and temporal dynamics compared with five commonly used machine learning models. More importantly, the model revealed strong time-lagged control from climate wetness on the burned areas. The model also predicted that, under a high-emission future climate scenario, the recently observed declines in burned area will reverse in South America in the near future due to climate changes. Our study provides a reliable and interpretable fire model and highlights the importance of lagged wildfire–climate relationships in historical and future predictions.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2018

GEOS-CF Model Assessment of PM2.5 During Wildfires: Inferring the Impact of PM2.5 Exposure on Adverse Respiratory & Cardiovascular Conditions

Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can aggravate pre-existing respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. When PM2.5 is inhaled it can cause damage to the lungs such as reduced lung function and shortness of breath. After being inhaled PM2.5 can enter the bloodstream and cause harm to the heart. One major natural source of PM2.5 exposure is from wildfire smoke. The particulates within the smoke from the wildfires can spread from the initial source region, potentially impacting communities both near and far. During and after wildfire events, PM2.5 levels can exceed the WHO air quality guidelines (10 gm^3 annual mean; 25 gm^3 daily mean), becoming hazardous to an individual's health. Global models can be used to simulate the emission and transport of these particulates and subsequently they can be valuable to air quality forecasting in highly polluted areas. The NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) version 5 Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) system has been used to produce near-real time air quality forecasts of atmospheric composition at a high global resolution of 25 km. The GEOS-CF system utilizes the GEOS weather forecast model coupled with GEOS-Chem (version 11) chemistry module to provide analyses and forecasts of various toxic air pollutants, including PM2.5. The GEOS-CF simulated high levels of PM2.5 (40 gm^3 to 250 gm^3 ), exceeding the WHO guidelines, during multiple recent regional and global wildfire seasons, including the 2017 Seattle, WA and Los Angeles, CA wildfire seasons, and biomass burning events in India. Furthermore, the GEOS-CF simulated PM2.5 applied to a human health assessment model, BenMAP (The Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program, version 1.3), estimates the impact on adverse respiratory health conditions due to PM2.5 exposure from wildfires. The GEOS-CF predicted PM2.5 during the wildfire season with the corresponding BenMAP results provides an assessment of the human health impact of PM2.5 exposure.

Saunders, Emily↗

NASA NTRS2016

Lightning NOx and Impacts on Air Quality

Lightning generates relatively large but uncertain quantities of nitrogen oxides, critical precursors for ozone and hydroxyl radical (OH), the primary tropospheric oxidants. Lightning nitrogen oxide strongly influences background ozone and OH due to high ozone production efficiencies in the free troposphere, effecting small but non-negligible contributions to surface pollutant concentrations. Lightning globally contributes 3-4 ppbv of simulated annual-mean policy-relevant background (PRB) surface ozone, comprised of local, regional, and hemispheric components, and up to 18 ppbv during individual events. Feedbacks via methane may counter some of these effects on decadal time scales. Lightning contributes approximately 1 percent to annual-mean surface particulate matter, as a direct precursor and by promoting faster oxidation of other precursors. Lightning also ignites wildfires and contributes to nitrogen deposition. Urban pollution influences lightning itself, with implications for regional lightning-nitrogen oxide production and feedbacks on downwind surface pollution. How lightning emissions will change in a warming world remains uncertain.

Reactive nitrogen oxides↗

NASA NTRS2021

Evaluation and Intercomparison of Wildfire Smoke Forecasts from Multiple Modeling Systems for the 2019 Williams Flats Fire

Wildfire smoke is one of the most significant concerns of human and environmental health, associated with its substantial impacts on air quality, weather, and climate. However, biomass burning emissions and smoke remain among the largest sources of uncertainties in air quality forecasts. In this study, we evaluate the smoke emissions and plume forecasts from 12 state-of-the-art air quality forecasting systems during the Williams Flats fire in Washington State, US, August 2019, which was intensively observed during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field campaign. Model forecasts with lead times within 1 d are intercompared under the same framework based on observations from multiple platforms to reveal their performance regarding fire emissions, aerosol optical depth (AOD), surface PM2.5, plume injection, and surface PM2.5 to AOD ratio. The comparison of smoke organic carbon (OC) emissions suggests a large range of daily totals among the models, with a factor of 20 to 50. Limited representations of the diurnal patterns and day-to-day variations of emissions highlight the need to incorporate new methodologies to predict the temporal evolution and reduce uncertainty of smoke emission estimates. The evaluation of smoke AOD (sAOD) forecasts suggests overall underpredictions in both the magnitude and smoke plume area for nearly all models, although the high-resolution models have a better representation of the fine-scale structures of smoke plumes. The models driven by fire radiative power (FRP)-based fire emissions or assimilating satellite AOD data generally outperform the others. Additionally, limitations of the persistence assumption used when predicting smoke emissions are revealed by substantial underpredictions of sAOD on 8 August 2019, mainly over the transported smoke plumes, owing to the underestimated emissions on 7 August. In contrast, the surface smoke PM2.5 (sPM2.5) forecasts show both positive and negative overall biases for these models, with most members presenting more considerable diurnal variations of sPM2.5. Overpredictions of sPM2.5 are found for the models driven by FRP-based emissions during nighttime, suggesting the necessity to improve vertical emission allocation within and above the planetary boundary layer (PBL). Smoke injection heights are further evaluated using the NASA Langley Research Center's Differential Absorption High Spectral Resolution Lidar (DIAL-HSRL) data collected during the flight observations. As the fire became stronger over 3–8 August, the plume height became deeper, with a day-to-day range of about 2–9 km a.g.l. However, narrower ranges are found for all models, with a tendency of overpredicting the plume heights for the shallower injection transects and underpredicting for the days showing deeper injections. The misrepresented plume injection heights lead to inaccurate vertical plume allocations along the transects corresponding to transported smoke that is 1 d old. Discrepancies in model performance for surface PM2.5 and AOD are further suggested by the evaluation of their ratio, which cannot be compensated for by solely adjusting the smoke emissions but are more attributable to model representations of plume injections, besides other possible factors including the evolution of PBL depths and aerosol optical property assumptions. By consolidating multiple forecast systems, these results provide strategic insight on pathways to improve smoke forecasts.

AOD↗

DOE OSTI2025

Eastward-shifting boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation amplifies North America heatwave and wildfire risks in warming climate

Boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation (BSISO) is a key component of tropical climate variability, characterized by eastward and northeastward propagation of organized convection across the Indo-Pacific region. BSISO influences weather and climate extremes through atmospheric teleconnections, but its future changes and related extremes remain unclear. Here, based on Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6, we find that under a high-emission scenario, BSISO convection will shift eastward by ~3° (~300 km) in 2065–2099, driven by moisture profile changes associated with sea surface temperature warming over central-to-eastern Pacific. This eastward-shifted BSISO convection, along with a northward expansion of the westerly jet, strengthens the BSISO teleconnections that extend into broader areas of North America. These changes will increase the BSISO-related heatwave risks by 23% and wildfire risks by 3.5 times over northern North America compared to present-day conditions. The findings underscore the amplification of BSISO’s influence on extreme risks of extreme weather, emphasizing the need for improved adaptation and mitigation strategies for future climates.

BSISO teleconnection↗

DOE OSTI2023

Extension of Large Fire Emissions From Summer to Autumn and Its Drivers in the Western US

Abstract Burned areas in the western US have increased ten‐fold since 1980s, which are attributable to multiple factors, including increasing heat, changing precipitation patterns, and extended drought. To better understand how these factors contribute to large fire emissions (gridded monthly fire emissions >95th percentile of all the fire emissions in the western US; 0.009 Gg/month), we build a machine learning model to predict fire emissions (PM 2.5 ) over the western US at 0.25° resolution, interpreted using explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). From the predictor contributions derived from XAI, we conduct k‐means clustering analysis to identify four clusters of predictor variables representing different drivers of large fire emissions. The four clusters feature the contributions of fuel load (Cluster 1) and different levels of dryness (Cluster 2–4), controlled by fuel moisture, drought condition, and fire‐favorable large‐scale meteorological patterns featuring high temperature, high pressure, and low relative humidity. In the past two decades, large fire emissions peak in summer. However, large fire emissions increased significantly in September and October in 2010–2020 relative to 2000–2009, extending the peak large fire emissions from summer to autumn. The larger enhancements of large fire emissions during autumn compared to summer are contributed by decreased fuel moisture, along with more frequent concurrent fire‐favorable large‐scale meteorological patterns and drought. These results highlight fuel drying as a common driver supported by multiple drivers, such as warmer temperature and more frequent synoptic patterns favorable for fires, in increasing the autumn risk of large fire emissions across the western US.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

Global Building Decarbonization Trends and Strategies

It is evident from extreme weather patterns that climate change is impacting the whole world. The consequences in the form of unpredicted severe weather conditions, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires have been disrupting national economies and affecting lives across the globe. As the global economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the temporary drop in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions mainly caused due to travel bans and economic slowdowns is no longer the case and, moving forward, controlling the increase in GHG emissions has emerged as a global challenge. The impact of climate change has enabled an acknowledgement of the challenge and this coincided with the rapid development of clean energy technologies for buildings, transportation, and industrial sectors, while ensuring a significant reduction in costs for their wide implementation.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Building Capacity for Policy-makers in a Virtual Setting: Providing Tools to Analyze Wildfire Smoke Plumes and Their Impacts

The NASA DEVELOP Program conducted 10-week long feasibility projects in a remote work setting, including partnering with The Nature Conservancy’s Washington Chapter and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to investigate wildfire smoke from 2000 - 2020 in the Pacific Northwest using satellite-derived data. The team engaged with platforms for collaboration both internally with NASA affiliates and externally with community organizations. Working from multiple states, the team members used a variety of software including Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Google Earth Engine to foster communication and work with data in a shared virtual environment. Throughout the project, the team learned that executing the project in a distanced work setting made it easier to reach out to scientists across the country for expertise and guidance. To study changes in air quality resulting from wildfire smoke, the team utilized data from NASA’s Fire Information from Resource Management System (FIRMS) and the ESA’s Sentinel-5 TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI). The team created a Google Earth Engine web-based tool, “Plume Hazards and Observations of Emissions by Navigating an Interactive eXplorer” (PHOENIX), to visualize changes in pollutants and aerosol optical depth after fire events. The potential relationship between plume height and fire radiative power was evaluated by using NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard Aqua and Terra satellites and NASA’s Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) aboard Terra with the MISR INteractive eXplorer (MINX). The PHOENIX smoke assessment tool and science communication infographics will be shared electronically with the partner organizations. Furthermore, the team introduced the partners to MINX and will provide a tailored tutorial that included a recorded video and a written component with a live virtual workshop. These resources build capacity for further research and education on wildfire smoke and air quality within communities.

NASA DEVELOP↗

NASA NTRS2008

A View of Earth's Aerosol System from Space to Your Office Chair

Aerosols are tiny particles and droplets suspended in the air. Each day you breathe in about 10 billion of them, about a half a million per breath. They are formed in nature by volcanoes, dust storms, sea spray, and emissions from vegetation. Humans create aerosols and alter their natural sources by burning fossil fuels and modifying land cover. Fires are another important source of aerosols; some are natural, such as wildfires started by lightning strikes, while others are from human-caused burning of vegetation for cooking, heating, and land clearing. Aerosols have complex effects on Earth's climate. In general, they cool the surface by reflecting (scattering) radiation from the sun back into space. Dust and smoke absorb solar radiation and heat the atmosphere where they are concentrated. Aerosols change the properties of clouds. Indeed, it would be very difficult to form clouds in the atmosphere without aerosols to act as 'seeds' for water to condense on. In aerosol polluted environments clouds tend to have smaller droplets than clouds formed in cleaner environments; these polluted clouds appear brighter from space because they reflect more sunlight, and they may persist longer and not rain as intensely. Aerosols also affect local air quality and visibility. Data collected by NASA satellites over the past decade have provided an unprecedented view of Earth's aerosol distribution and dramatically increased our understanding of where aerosols come from and just how far they travel in the atmosphere. In this talk I will discuss observations of aerosols from space and how they inform numerical transport models attempting to simulate the global aerosol system.

Colarco, Peter↗

NASA NTRS2016

Planning, Implementation, and Scientific Goals of the Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) Field Missions

The Studies of Emissions and Atmospheric Composition, Clouds and Climate Coupling by Regional Surveys (SEAC4RS) field mission based at Ellington Field, Texas, during August and September 2013 employed the most comprehensive airborne payload to date to investigate atmospheric composition over North America. The NASA ER-2, DC-8, and SPEC Inc. Learjet flew 57 science flights from the surface to 20 km. The ER-2 employed seven remote sensing instruments as a satellite surrogate and eight in situ instruments. The DC-8 employed 23 in situ and five remote sensing instruments for radiation, chemistry, and microphysics. The Learjet used 11 instruments to explore cloud microphysics. SEAC4RS launched numerous balloons, augmented Aerosol RObotic NETwork, and collaborated with many existing ground measurement sites. Flights investigating convection included close coordination of all three aircraft. Coordinated DC-8 and ER-2 flights investigated the optical properties of aerosols, the influence of aerosols on clouds, and the performance of new instruments for satellite measurements of clouds and aerosols. ER-2 sorties sampled stratospheric injections of water vapor and other chemicals by local and distant convection. DC-8 flights studied seasonally evolving chemistry in the Southeastern U.S., atmospheric chemistry with lower emissions of NOx and SO2 than in previous decades, isoprene chemistry under high and low NOx conditions at different locations, organic aerosols, air pollution near Houston and in petroleum fields, smoke from wildfires in western forests and from agricultural fires in the Mississippi Valley, and the ways in which the chemistry in the boundary layer and the upper troposphere were influenced by vertical transport in convective clouds.

Toon, Owen B.↗