Modeling biomass burning smoke with enhanced Non-Methane Organic Compounds (NMOCs) over the Continental US

Abstract:

Biomass burning emits several teragrams of particles around the globe each year, along with aerosols, greenhouse gases and ozone precursors. Several biomass burning inventories are available using different methods. However, they tend to be simplified, offering limited numbers of chemical and aerosol species and, rarely, accounting for complete speciation of volatile organic compounds that could lead to ozone and secondary organic aerosol formation. Here, we include a method to estimate additional non-methane organic compounds (NMOCs) based on carbon monoxide emission flux of a given inventory. In this study, we have included these NMOCs emissions based on the Quick Fire Emissions Dataset (QFED) inventory. To evaluate the impact of the additional NMOCs species, two sensitivity simulations are run over the continental US (CONUS) during August 2019. Simulations are compared against aerosol optical depth at 550 nm from remote sensing observations (MODIS MAIAC) and multiple trace gases from airborne data from the FIREX-AQ field experiment. Results show increased concentrations of several species, ozone formation and aerosol optical depth presenting a promissory improvement in biomass burning modeling.