A202-10
Verification of the HRRR-Smoke simulations for the BB-FLUX and WE-CAN field campaigns during July-September, 2018
Tuesday, 15 December 2020: 18:06
Virtual
Ravan Ahmadov1, Eric James2, Georg Grell3, Curtis Alexander4, Stuart A McKeen5, Ka Yee Wong6, Gabriel Pereira7, Saulo R Freitas8,9, Ivan Andras Csiszar10, Marina Tsidulko11, Shobha Kondragunta12, Chuanyu Xu13, Rainer M Volkamer14, Natalie Kille15, Johana Romero Alvarez16, Kyle J Zarzana17, Jake Rowe17, Emily Fischer18, Lauren Garofalo19, Robert J Yokelson20, Scott C. Herndon21, Delphine Farmer19, Matson A Pothier19 and Sonia M Kreidenweis22, (1)NOAA ESRL/GSL and CU Boulder/CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States, (2)Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO, United States, (3)NOAA Global Systems Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, CO, United States, (5)NOAA ESRL/CSL and CU Boulder/CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States, (6)Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, Fort Collins, United States, (7)Federal University of São João Del Rei, São João Del Rei, Brazil, (8)CPTEC Center for Weather Forecasts and Climate Research, Grupo de Modelagem da Atmosfera e Interfaces - GMAI, Cachoeira Paulista, Brazil, (9)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, United States, (10)NOAA/NESDIS, College Park, MD, United States, (11)IMSG (NOAA/NESDIS/STAR), College Park, MD, United States, (12)NOAA College Park, College Park, MD, United States, (13)I.M. Systems Group, Inc, Rockville, MD, United States, (14)University of Colorado Boulder, Chemistry, ATOC & CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States, (15)University of Colorado Boulder, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences & CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States, (16)University of Colorado Boulder, Chemistry & CIRES, Boulder, United States, (17)University of Colorado Boulder, Chemistry & CIRES, Boulder, CO, United States, (18)Colorado State University, Department of Atmospheric Science, Fort Collins, CO, United States, (19)Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, United States, (20)University of Montana, Department of Chemistry, Missoula, MT, United States, (21)Aerodyne Research Inc, Billerica, MA, United States, (22)Colorado State University, Atmospheric Science, Fort Collins, CO, United States
Abstract:
The HRRR-Smoke model is based on NOAA’s HRRR weather forecasting model. HRRR-Smoke simulates smoke from wildland fires in real time at 3km grid spacing over the CONUS domain by ingesting the fire radiative power data from the VIIRS and MODIS satellite instruments. The model includes the feedback of smoke on radiation. The boundary conditions for the meteorological and smoke fields are ingested from another model - RAP-Smoke, which covers the entire North America and other regions at 13.5 km resolution. The HRRR-Smoke model was used in forecasting smoke from the wildfires burning in the northwestern US and western Canada during July-September, 2018, one of the most active fire seasons in recent years.
The BB-FLUX campaign provides unprecedented remote sensing measurements obtained by the CU AirSOF instrument onboard the Wyoming King Air research aircraft. The CU AirSOF instrument measures the total column of CO above the aircraft through optically thick smoke plumes. The FRP based CO mass flux estimates are compared against the CO mass flux measurements for the wildfires in the northwestern US obtained by CU AirSOF. These comparisons provide insight on the accuracy of the HRRR-Smoke parameterization of the fire emissions for estimating the fluxes for different fuel types.
The model simulations of the 3D smoke concentrations are extensively evaluated using the in-situ measurements obtained onboard the C-130 aircraft during the WE-CAN campaign, which sampled the aerosol composition in the numerous smoke plumes from wildfires in the northwestern US. The simulated ground level smoke concentrations are compared with the aerosol measurements from EPA’s AirNow network and AERODYNE mobile lab. The mobile lab provides continuous high-frequency aerosol measurements within some valleys in Idaho and Washington during August 10-28, 2018. During some episodes dense smoke plumes were sampled by the mobile lab downwind of the wildfires. Additionally, the VIIRS satellite AOD data with the smoke mask are used to validate the vertically integrated smoke concentrations from the model. The remote sensing, ground and aircraft based in-situ measurements in combination with the direct biomass burning flux measurements provide a unique dataset to evaluate the HRRR-Smoke model and improve its smoke forecasting capabilities.
