Widespread biomass burning smoke throughout the remote troposphere
Schill, G.P.; Froyd, K.D.; Bian, H.; Kupc, A.; Williamson, C.; Brock, C.A.; Ray, E.; Hornbrook, R.S.; Hills, A.J.; Apel, E.C.; Chin, M.; Colarco, P.R.; Murphy, D.M. (2020). Widespread biomass burning smoke throughout the remote troposphere. Nature Geoscience 13(6): 422-427. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-020-0586-1
In: Nature Geoscience. Nature Publishing Group: London. ISSN 1752-0894; e-ISSN 1752-0908, more
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| Authors | | Top |
- Schill, G.P.
- Froyd, K.D.
- Bian, H.
- Kupc, A.
- Williamson, C.
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- Brock, C.A.
- Ray, E.
- Hornbrook, R.S.
- Hills, A.J.
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- Apel, E.C.
- Chin, M.
- Colarco, P.R.
- Murphy, D.M.
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| Abstract |
Biomass burning emits ~34–41 Tg yr−1 of smoke aerosol to the atmosphere. Biomass burning aerosol directly influences the Earth’s climate by attenuation of solar and terrestrial radiation; however, its abundance and distribution on a global scale are poorly constrained, particularly after plumes dilute into the background remote troposphere and are subject to removal by clouds and precipitation. Here we report global-scale, airborne measurements of biomass burning aerosol in the remote troposphere. Measurements were taken during four series of seasonal flights over the Pacific and Atlantic Ocean basins, each with near pole-to-pole latitude coverage. We find that biomass burning particles in the remote troposphere are dilute but ubiquitous, accounting for one-quarter of the accumulation-mode aerosol number and one-fifth of the aerosol mass. Comparing our observations with a high-resolution global aerosol model, we find that the model overestimates biomass burning aerosol mass in the remote troposphere with a mean bias of >400%, largely due to insufficient wet removal by in-cloud precipitation. After updating the model’s aerosol removal scheme we find that, on a global scale, dilute smoke contributes as much as denser plumes to biomass burning’s scattering and absorption effects on the Earth’s radiation field. |
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