A251-04
Estimating stratospheric carbonaceous aerosols mass in the aftermath of pyro-convective activity using satellite observations

Thursday, 17 December 2020: 04:09
Virtual
Omar Torres1, Peter Richard Colarco1, Sampa Das2, Ali H Omar3, Hiren T Jethva1 and Changwoo Ahn4, (1)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (2)NASA Post-doctoral Program, Universities Space Research Association, Columbia, MD, United States, (3)NASA/Langley Research Ctr, Hampton, VA, United States, (4)Science Systems and Applications, Inc., Lanham, MD, United States
Abstract:
Wildfires over the last few years have been particularly intense. The pyro-convective power of some of these conflagrations have been so large, that plumes of carbonaceous aerosol particles have quickly ascended to the UTLS and injected huge amounts of carbon-containing aerosols in the stratosphere. Observations by currently operational satellite-borne sensors capable of detecting elevated aerosol layers have allowed the close monitoring of the evolution of these aerosol layers since their initial emission. In this presentation we document the use of satellite near UV observations by the EPIC, OMPS, and TropOMI nadir mappers along with CALIOP measurements to obtain quantitative estimates of the mass of carbonaceous aerosol reaching the stratosphere following the August 2017 British Columbia and Australia 2019-20 pyro-convective activity. The remote sensing based results are compared to the NASA GEOS model simulations of the specific pyro-convective events to provide further insights.
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