Mesoscale modeling of smoke transport from equatorial Southeast Asian Maritime Continent to the Philippines: First comparison of ensemble analysis with in situ observations
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The Southwest Monsoon represents an important synoptic scale meteorological feature that modulates precipitation throughout Southeast Asia. In addition, southwesterly flow can funnel large amounts of biomass burning aerosol into heavily populated areas throughout the Philippines, mixing with urban emissions and representing a significant air quality issue. From a climate perspective, understanding interactions between these particles and clouds has important societal ramifications through frequent extreme periods of flood and drought. Here we present airborne observations made in support of the NASA CAMP2Ex (Cloud and Aerosol Monsoonal Processes-Philippines Experiment) mission aboard the Wallops Flight Facility P-3 research aircraft, based at Clark International Airport in the Luzon region of Northern Philippines. Nineteen research flights were conducted in August-October of 2019. An extensive suite of aerosol microphysical, optical, and chemical instrumentation was deployed, along with trace gas and remote sensing measurements, to characterize aerosol emissions and their vertical/spatial variability associated with moderately convective marine cloud systems in the region. Analysis will focus on characterizing disparate aerosol sources with respect to derived chemical and optical properties relevant to global circulation modeling. For example, higher than expected mass scattering efficiencies for aged biomass burning emissions, derived from a combination of nephelometer and aerosol mass spectrometer measurements, are attributed to increased particle size and decreased density. Results will also illustrate the evolution of aerosols from Indonesian agricultural biomass burning activities into the Philippines region, in comparison with urban emissions from the megacity Manila and transported air masses from mainland Asia.
The focus of our investigation was on the application of digital topographic data in conducting first-order volcanological and structural studies of tropical volcanoes, focusing on the Java, the Philippines and the Galapagos Islands. Kilauea volcano, Hawaii, served as our test site for SRTM data validation. Volcanoes in humid tropical environments are frequently cloud covered, typically densely vegetated and erode rapidly, so that it was expected that new insights into the styles of eruption of these volcanoes could be obtained from analysis of topographic data. For instance, in certain parts of the world, such as Indonesia, even the regional structural context of volcanic centers is poorly known, and the distribution of volcanic products (e.g., lava flows, pyroclastic flows, and lahars) are not well mapped. SRTM and Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) data were expected to provide new information on these volcanoes. Due to the cancellation of the VCL mission, we did not conduct any lidar studies during the duration of this project. Digital elevation models (DEMs) such as those collected by SRTM provide quantitative information about the time-integrated typical activity on a volcano and allow an assessment of the spatial and temporal contributions of various constructional and destructional processes to each volcano's present morphology. For basaltic volcanoes, P_c?w!m-d and Garbed (2000) have shown that gradual slopes (less than 5 deg.) occur where lava and tephra pond within calderas or in the saddles between adjacent volcanoes, as well as where lava deltas coalesce to form coastal plains. Vent concentration zones (axes of rift zones) have slopes ranging from 10 deg. to 12 deg. Differential vertical growth rates between vent concentration zones and adjacent mostly-lava flanks produce steep constructional slopes up to 40". The steepest slopes (locally approaching 90 deg.) are produced by fluvial erosion, caldera collapse, faulting, and catastrophic avalanches, all of which are usually identifiable. Due to the delay in the release of the SRTM data following the February 2000 flight, a significant part of our effort was devoted to the analog studies of the SRTM topographic data using topographic data from airborne interferometric radars. As part of the original SRTM Science Team, we proposed four study sites (Kilauea, Hawaii; Mt. Pinatubo, Philippines; Cerro Am1 and Femandina volcanoes, Galapagos Islands; and Tengger caldera, Java) where we could conduct detailed geologic studies to evaluate the uses of SRTM data for the analysis of lava flows, lahars, erosion of ash deposits, and an evaluation of the structural setting of the volcanoes. Only near the end of this project was one of these SRTM Science Team products (Luzon Island, the Philippines) released to the community, and we only had limited time to work on these data.
Biomass burning in Southeast Asia is a major pollutant source contributing to poor air quality throughout the region. Thus, understanding these emissions is critical for predicting and mitigating their health impacts. While there have been many studies reporting ground-based and satellite measurements, regional scale measurements to tie the two together have not been common in this region. The 2019 Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) field campaign examined Southeast Asian regional sources and their effects on aerosol/cloud interactions using a combination of airborne, shipborne, and ground-based measurements. On 16 September, a major biomass burning event primarily located on Borneo was sampled via aircraft in the near-field over the Sulu Sea, while on 17 September, the aged plume from the event was sampled again east of the Philippines over the Philippine Sea. We discuss the emissions from this event, using tracer-tracer ratios (e.g. MCE, NOy/CO), HYSPLIT back trajectories, and HSRL-2 lidar retrievals to differentiate sources and provide insight into the composition and chemical evolution of the plume. This case study provides a valuable perspective into the accuracy of emission inventories as well as a rare opportunity for satellite validation.
A model for oblique convergence between plates of lithosphere is proposed in which at least a fraction of slip parallel to the plate margin results in transcurrent movements on a nearly vertical fault which is located on the continental side of a zone of plate consumption. In an extreme case of complete decoupling only the component of slip normal to the plate margin can be inferred from underthrusting. Recent movements in the western Sunda region provide the most convincing evidence for decoupling of slip, which in this region is thought to be oblique to the plate margin. A speculative model for convergence along the margins of the Philippine Sea is constructed from an inferred direction of oblique slip in the Philippine region. This model requires that the triple point formed by the junction of the Japanese and Izu-Bonin trenches and the Nankai trough migrate along the Sagami trough.
Excess Ir found in sediments at the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary and in other (e.g., Pliocene) sediments from deep sea drilling cores is widely interpreted as evidence of major impact events. The Australasian tektites originated in an impact event approximately 0.77 Ma ago; microtektites have been found in deep-sea sediment cores from throughout the Indian Ocean, the Philippine Sea, and western Pacific Ocean, but Ir has not been previously reported in these horizons. The deep-sea record of tektites is of particular interest, because in contrast to most continental occurrences, the stratigraphy preserves the original depositional position. Recently several cores having exceptionally high contents of Australasian microtektites have been investigated, Glass and Wu found shocked quartz associated with the microtektites. We used neutron activation to determine concentrations of Ir and other elements in two cores bearing microtektites, one from Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) hole 758B in the Eastern Indian Ocean and one from DSDP hole 769A in the Sulu Sea (near Mindanao, Philippines). The sedimentation age for the microtektite layers in core 758B lies between 0.73 - 0.78 Ma and agrees well with the mean laser-fusion Ar-40/Ar-39 age of Australasian tektites of 0.77 +/- 0.02 Ma by Izett et al. We are able to resolve a small positive Ir enhancement in 758B. Core 769A shows too much scatter to allow resolution of an Ir peak.
Typhoon Haiyan, which devastated the Visayan Islands in the Philippines on November 8, 2013 was recorded as the strongest typhoon ever-observed using satellite data. Typhoons in the region usually originate from the mid-Pacific region that includes the Warm Pool, which is regarded as the warmest ocean surface region globally. Two study areas were considered: one in the Warm Pool Region and the other in the West Pacific Region near the Philippines. Among the most important factors that affect the strength of a typhoon are sea surface temperature (SST) and water vapor. It is remarkable that in November 2013 the average SST in the Warm Pool Region was the highest observed during the 1981 to 2014 period while that of the West Pacific Region was among the highest as well. Moreover, the increasing trend in SST was around 0.20C per decade in the warm pool region and even higher at 0.23C per decade in the West Pacific region. The yearly minimum SST has also been increasing suggesting that the temperature of the ocean mixed layer is also increasing. Further analysis indicated that water vapor, clouds, winds and sea level pressure for the same period did not reveal strong signals associated with the 2013 event. The SST is shown to be well-correlated with wind strength of historically strong typhoons in the country and the observed trends in SST suggest that extremely destructive typhoons like Haiyan are likely to occur in the future.
The NASA Clouds, Aerosols and Monsoon Processes-Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) occurred during August-October, 2019,primarily over the ocean near the Philippines, including the ocean west of Luzon. CAMP2Ex attempts to characterize the role of anthropogenic and natural aerosol particles in modulating warm and mixed-phase precipitation in the maritime continent during the Southwest Monsoon. This mission is also examining relationships between spatial heterogeneity in the aerosol and cloud fields and radiative heating rates and studying the effects of aerosol concentration and composition on the microphysical properties of shallow cumulus and cumulus congestus clouds. Critical to the successful investigation of these objectives is profiling of aerosol, cloud and meteorological properties throughout the atmospheric column. For the CAMP2Ex experiment, we deployed the second generation NASA Langley airborne High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL-2) on the NASA P-3 aircraft to obtain profile measurements of aerosol and thin cloud extinction and optical thickness via the HSRL technique at 355 and 532 nm, and of backscatter and depolarization at 355, 532, and 1064 nm. The HSRL technique allows for the independent measurement of extinction and backscatter without the need to assume modeled lidar ratios. Additional HSRL-2 data products include aerosol type, mixed layer depth, and range-resolved aerosol microphysical parameters. The HSRL measurements reveal the temporal, spatial, and vertical variability of aerosol optical properties over these locations. The HSRL-2 measured these backscatter, extinction, and depolarization profiles during all nineteen science flights and the transit flights to and from the aircraft operations base at Clark International Airport.In this presentation, we use these HSRL-2 measurements to show the horizontal and vertical distributions of aerosols in the CAMP2Ex operational area as well as provide insight into the optical and physical characteristics of these aerosols. We also discuss how these aerosols are distributed within and above the mixed layer.
Biomass burning in Southeast Asia is a major pollutant source contributing to poor air quality throughout the region. Thus, understanding these emissions is critical for predicting and mitigating their health impacts. While there have been many studies reporting ground-based and satellite measurements, airborne regional scale measurements to tie the two together have not been common. The 2019 Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) field campaign examined Southeast Asian regional sources and their effects on aerosol/cloud interactions using a combination of airborne, shipborne, and ground-based measurements. Flights sampled a variety of airmasses in the Philippine, South China, and Sulu seas during both monsoonal and post-monsoonal conditions. Thus, CAMP2Ex provides a unique opportunity to study how transported and local emissions affect air quality trends and airmass chemical composition. In this analysis, correlated airborne in situ enhancement ratios of CH4 and CO are used to identify source regimes of high urban or biomass burning influence as well as urban regimes with different emission factors. Combined with HYSPLIT backtrajectories, these source regimes are examined for their effects on ozone, NOy, and aerosol chemical composition. For example, while observed O3/CO enhancement ratios remain constant for urban differing source regimes, NOy/CO ratios are observed to vary across these regimes. For biomass burning sources, O3/CO enhancement ratios are observed to be lower than previously reported by measurements in the region.
Biomass burning in Southeast Asia is a major pollutant source contributing to poor air quality throughout the region. Thus, understanding these emissions is critical for predicting and mitigating their health impacts. While there have been many studies reporting ground-based and satellite measurements, airborne regional scale measurements to tie the two together have not been common. The 2019 Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) field campaign examined Southeast Asian regional sources and their effects on aerosol/cloud interactions using a combination of airborne, shipboard, and ground-based measurements. Flights sampled a variety of airmasses in the Philippine, South China, and Sulu seas during both the southwest monsoon and monsoon transition periods. Thus, CAMP2Ex provides a unique opportunity to study how transported and local emissions affect air quality trends and airmass chemical composition. In this analysis, correlated airborne in situ enhancement ratios of CH4 to CO are used to identify source regimes of high urban or biomass burning influence as well as urban regimes with different emission factors. Combined with HYSPLIT backtrajectories, these source regimes are examined for their effects on ozone, NOy, and aerosol chemical composition. For example, while observed O3/CO enhancement ratios remain constant for differing urban source regimes, NOy/CO ratios are observed to vary across these regimes. For biomass burning sources, O3/CO enhancement ratios are observed to be lower than previously reported by measurements in the region.
Southeast Asian biomass burning is a major pollutant source that contributes to poor air quality throughout the region. Thus, understanding these emissions is critical for predicting and mitigating their health impacts. While many studies have reported ground-based and satellite measurements, airborne measurements at a regional scale capable of tying the two together have not been common. The 2019 Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) field project examined Southeast Asian regional sources and their effects on aerosol/cloud interactions using a combination of airborne, shipboard, and ground-based measurements. These flights sampled a variety of airmass sources over the Philippine, South China, and Sulu seas during both the southwest monsoon and monsoon transition periods. Measurements during CAMP2Ex provide a unique opportunity to investigate how these transported and local emissions affected air quality trends and airmass chemical composition. We present correlated airborne in situ enhancement ratios of CH4 to CO, using them to identify source regimes of either high urban or biomass burning influence as well as urban regimes with different emission factors. Combined with backtrajectory analysis using HYSPLIT, source regimes were examined for differences in ozone, reactive nitrogen, and aerosol chemical composition. While observed O3/CO enhancement ratios remain constant for differing urban source regimes, NOy/CO ratios varied across these regimes. For biomass burning sources, O3/CO enhancement ratios are observed to be lower than previously reported by measurements in the region.
Biomass burning aerosol impacts aspects of the atmosphere and Earth system through radiative forcing, serving as cloud condensation nuclei, and air quality. Despite its importance, the representation of biomass burning aerosol is not always accurate in numerical weather prediction and climate models or reanalysis products. Using observations collected as part of the Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) in August through October of 2019, aerosol concentration and optical properties are evaluated within the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) and its underlying aerosol module, GOCART. In the operational configuration, GEOS assimilates aerosol optical depth observations at 550 nm to constrain aerosol fields. Particularly for biomass burning aerosol, without the assimilation of aerosol optical depth, aerosol extinction is underestimated compared to observations collected in the Philippines region during the CAMP2Ex campaign. The assimilation process adds excessive amounts of carbon to account for the underestimated extinction, resulting in positive biases in the mass of black and organic carbon, especially within the boundary layer, relative to in situ observations from the Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment. Counteracting this, GEOS is deficient in sulphate and nitrate aerosol just above the boundary layer. Aside from aerosol mass, extinction within GEOS is a function of ambient relative humidity and an assumed particle size distribution. The relationship between dry and ambient extinction in GEOS reveals that hygroscopic growth is too aggressive within the model for biomass burning aerosol. An additional concern lies in the assumed particle size distribution for GEOS, which has a mode radius that is too small for organic carbon. Variability in the observed particle size distribution for biomass burning aerosol within a single flight also illuminates the fact that a single assumed particle size distribution is not sufficient and that for a proper representation, a more advanced aerosol module with GEOS may be necessary.
The Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) is an airborne along-track scanner measuring the polarized and total reflectances in 9 spectral channels. The RSP's uniquely high angular resolution coupled with the high frequency of measurements allows for characterization of liquid-water cloud droplet sizes using the rainbow structure observed in the polarized reflectance measurements. The RSP observations also provide for derivation of 2D field of extinction coefficient inside the cloud using a tomographic technique. This technique utilizes the family of cloud shapes derived using "cutout" technique and corresponding to a number of thresholds in total reflectance (separating bright cloud from its darker background). These shapes can be interpreted as level curves of an abstract "reflectance density", which is then used for derivation of the directional cloud optical thickness (dCOT) tomogram. The latter is a collection of dCOTs parameterized by the angles and offsets of the corresponding view rays (chords) relative to the cloud center. After this, the inverse Radon Transform (the mathematical basis of the X-ray com-puter tomography) is applied to the dCOT tomogram yielding 2D spatial distribution of the extinction coefficient. The later can be converted into droplet number concentration using the droplet size profiles derived from the RSP's polarized reflectance measurements. After tests on synthetic data this technique was applied to real RSP measurements from NASA's Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) conducted in the vicinity of the Philippines during the Southwest Monsoon (August–September 2019). We have investigated the interiors of a number of clouds observed during CAMP2Ex focusing on Cu and CuCg (Tcu) cases. Our retrievals were routinely compared with the correlative measurements by lidar (HSRL-2) and cloud radar (APR-3) that were deployed on the same airborne platform (NASA P-3B) during this field experiment.
The field deployment phase of NASA’s Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) took place around the Philippines during August–October 2019, with the primary goal of jointly investigating aerosols and tropical meteorology at the micro-β to meso-β scales. A suite of instruments was deployed on NASA’s P-3B Orion aircraft to accomplish this mission, including: the Advanced Microwave Precipitation Radiometer (AMPR), Airborne Precipitation and cloud Radar 3rd Generation (APR-3), High Spectral Resolution Lidar 2 (HSRL2), and Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) dropsondes. To examine potential aerosol influences on maritime tropical convection, P-3 flight segments throughout CAMP2Ex were binned into similar environmental groups using “low,” “medium,” and “high” values of nine AVAPS-derived parameters with known physical connections to convective frequency and/or intensity. Aerosol concentrations in each flight segment were evaluated using three HSRL2 variables at 355 and 532 nm: aerosol backscatter, aerosol extinction, and aerosol optical thickness. A set of radiometer- and radar-derived variables directly related to convective frequency and/or intensity was used to characterize convection, which included: AMPR-derived integrated cloud liquid water; polarization-corrected temperatures at 10.7, 19.35, 37.1, and 85.5 GHz; peak equivalent radar reflectivity factor (ZH); peak height of 30-dBZ ZH; and the number of radar data columns with composite ZH > 30 dBZ. The ZH analyses were performed using both Ku- and Ka-band APR-3 data. For each flight segment, correlation coefficients were calculated between each convective parameter and aerosol concentrations within the “low,” “medium,” and “high” groups for each environmental variable. The environmental stratification thresholds were then varied in a series of sensitivity tests. Several noteworthy correlations were observed between the convective and aerosol parameters within the environmental groups, especially when stratifying the environments based on their 850–500-hPa temperature lapse rate, 700–500-hPa temperature lapse rate, and K-Index. The convective parameters were often correlated most strongly with 355-nm extinction, 532-nm extinction, and 532-nm backscatter, while the presence of precipitation-sized liquid and ice hydrometeors contributed to some unexpected negative correlations. In general, as environmental conditions became more favorable for convection, a stronger correlation was observed between the convective parameters and aerosol concentrations. However, a “Goldilocks” zone of medium aerosol concentration was correlated most strongly with the convective parameters in many cases. These results stress the importance of considering environmental and aerosol conditions together when evaluating their impacts on convection. This presentation will provide a detailed discussion of these results and their implications, a summary of the limitations associated with such an analysis, and suggestions for future work.
Biomass burning aerosol impacts aspects of the atmosphere and Earth system through direct and semi-direct effects, as well as influencing air quality. Despite its importance, the representation of biomass burning aerosol is not always accurate in numerical weather prediction and climate models or reanalysis products. Using observations collected as part of the Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) in August through October of 2019, aerosol concentration and optical properties are evaluated within the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) and its underlying aerosol module, GOCART. In the operational configuration, GEOS assimilates aerosol optical depth observations at 550 nm from AERONET and MODIS to constrain aerosol fields. Particularly for biomass burning aerosol, without the assimilation of aerosol optical depth, aerosol extinction is underestimated compared to observations collected in the Philippines region during the CAMP2Ex campaign. The assimilation process adds excessive amounts of carbon to account for the underestimated extinction, resulting in positive biases in the mass of black and organic carbon, especially within the boundary layer, relative to in situ observations from the Langley Aerosol Research Group Experiment. Counteracting this, GEOS is deficient in sulfate and nitrate aerosol just above the boundary layer. Aerosol extinction within GEOS is a function of the mass of different aerosol species, the ambient relative humidity, the assumed spectral optical properties, and particle size distribution per species. The relationship between dry and ambient extinction in GEOS reveals that hygroscopic growth is too high within the model for biomass burning aerosol. An additional concern lies in the assumed particle size distribution for GEOS, which has a single mode radius that is too small for organic carbon. Variability in the observed particle size distribution for biomass burning aerosol within a single flight also illuminates the fact that a single assumed particle size distribution is not sufficient and that for a proper representation, a more advanced aerosol module within GEOS may be necessary.
A framework to infer volume water fraction, soluble fraction and dry size distributions of fine-mode aerosol from multi-angle, multi-spectral polarimetry retrievals of column-averaged ambient aerosol properties is presented. The method is applied to observations of the Research Scanning Polarimeter (RSP) obtained during two NASA aircraft campaigns, namely the Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) and the Cloud, Aerosol, and Monsoon Processes Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex). All aerosol retrievals are statistically evaluated using in situ data. Volume water fraction is inferred from the retrieved ambient real part of the refractive index, assuming a dry refractive index of 1.54 and by applying a volume mixing rule to obtain the effective ambient refractive index. The uncertainties in inferred volume water fraction resulting from this simplified model are discussed and estimated to be lower than 0.2 and decreasing with increasing volume water fraction. The daily mean retrieved volume water fractions correlate well with the in situ values with a mean absolute difference of 0.09. Polarimeter-retrieved ambient effective radius for daily data is shown to increase as a function of volume water fraction as expected. Furthermore, the effective variance of the size distributions also increases with increasing effective radius, which we show is consistent with an external mixture of soluble and insoluble aerosol. The relative variations of effective radius and variance over an observation period are then used to estimate the soluble fraction of the aerosol. Daily results of soluble fraction correlate well with in situ-observed sulfate mass fraction with a correlation coefficient of 0.79. Subsequently, inferred water and soluble fractions are used to derive dry fine-mode size distributions from their ambient counterparts. While dry effective radii obtained in situ and from RSP show similar ranges, in situ values are generally substantially smaller during the ACTIVATE deployments, which may be due to biases in RSP retrievals or in the in situ observations, or both. Both RSP and in situ observations indicate the dominance of aerosol with low hygroscopicity during the ACTIVATE and CAMP2Ex campaigns. Furthermore, RSP indicates a high degree of external mixing of particles with low and high hygroscopicity. These retrievals of fine-mode water volume fraction and soluble fraction may be used for the evaluation of water uptake in atmospheric models. Furthermore, the framework allows us to estimate the variation in the concentration of fine-mode aerosol larger than a specific dry radius limit, which can be used as a proxy for the variation in cloud condensation nucleus concentrations. This framework may be applied to multi-angle, multi-spectral satellite data expected to be available in the near future.
Nimbus 3 and 4 satellites IR grating spectrometers for remote sensing of vertical temperature and humidity profiles of stratosphere and troposphere near Philippines
The OGO 4 and 6 (POGO) magnetic field results for the equatorial electrojet indicate that while the present models are approximately correct, the possibility of a westward component must be incorporated. The scatter diagrams of POGO amplitudes and surface data show a correlation. The ratios between the amplitudes estimated from surface data and those at 400 km altitude are as follows: India 5 to 8, East Africa (Addis Ababa) 4, Central Africa 3, West Africa (Nigeria) 3, South America (Huancayo) 5, and Philippines 5. The variation in the ratio is due to the conductivity structure of the earth in various zones.