A202-01
Sentinel 5p “Tropomi” Perspectives on FIREX-AQ and WE-CAN: Tracing Emissions over Hours and Days of Development

Tuesday, 15 December 2020: 17:30
Virtual
Robert B Chatfield1, Robert F Esswein2, Olga V. Kalashnikova3, Henk Eskes4, Joris P Veefkind4, Omar Torres5, Pablo E Saide6, R. Bradley Pierce7, Jochen Stutz8 and The FIREX-AQ Science Team, (1)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (2)Bay Area Environmental Research Institute Moffett Field, NASA Ames Earth Science, Moffett Field, CA, United States, (3)Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States, (4)Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, De Bilt, 3730, Netherlands, (5)NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, United States, (6)University of California Los Angeles, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES), Los Angeles, CA, United States, (7)NOAA/NESDIS, Center for Satellite Application and Research, Madison, WI, United States, (8)University of California Los Angeles, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Recorded Presentation
Abstract:
Sentinel 5p “Tropomi” retrievals of trace gases provided the major, multi-instrument fire studies FIREX-AQ and WE-CAN for the first time a data-based perspective on fire emissions. These descriptions put necessarily intermittent airborne sampling into the context of many days of fire development. We compiled near-real-time observations for flight planning in FIREX-AQ; we learned a lot. This presentation employs our later, more accurate offline “OFFL” or reprocessed “RPRO” products for NO2, CO, HCHO, total column ozone (TCO) aerosol indices, and aerosol layer height. On some days, multiple satellite passes allowed a description of emissions variability over hours. We provide examples as short movies of the progress of several fire emission plumes over several days: the FIREX-AQ fires at Tucker and Williams Flat, and a WE-CAN fire. The images of the Williams Flat Fire shown describe high NO2 relative to CO south of Spokane.

We found that close comparisons of products such as formaldehyde (HCHO) and the Aerosol Indices, short-wave and long-wave, required special care due to distracting features in the products. This care is rewarded by the added information allowed by a concerted analysis. The evolution of gas-phase organic activity, signaled by HCHO, could be compared to the evolution of aerosol phase brown carbon.

More insight into fire development is provided by comparison to forecast and assimilation modeling of these fires. Remote sampling of fire emissions was also possible from the DC-8 and ER-2, and we expect to compare these sensing products as they develop.

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