Impacts of increasing aridity and wildfires on aerosol loading in the intermountain Western US

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Impacts of increasing aridity and wildfires on aerosol loading in the intermountain Western US
• Journal Title:
  Environmental Research Letters
• Personal Author:
  Hallar, A Gannet ; Molotch, Noah P ; Hand, Jenny L ; Livneh, Ben ; McCubbin, Ian B ; Petersen, Ross ; Michalsky, Joseph ; Lowenthal, Douglas ; Kunkel, Kenneth E
• NOAA Program & Office:
  OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; ESRL (Earth System Research Laboratory) ; CSL (Chemical Sciences Laboratory) ; NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) ; NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information) ; CIRA (Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere) ; CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences) ; CICS (Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites)
• Description:
  Feedbacks between climate warming, land surface aridity, and wildfire-derived aerosols represent a large source of uncertainty in future climate predictions. Here, long-term observations of aerosol optical depth, surface level aerosol loading, fire-area burned, and hydrologic simulations are used to show that regional-scale increases in aridity and resulting wildfires have significantly increased summertime aerosol loading in remote high elevation regions of the Intermountain West of the United States. Surface summertime organic aerosol loading and total aerosol optical depth were both strongly correlated (p < 0.05) with aridity and fire area burned at high elevation sites across major western US mountain ranges. These results demonstrate that surface-level organic aerosol loading is dominated by summertime wildfires at many high elevation sites. This analysis provides new constraints for climate projections on the influence of drought and resulting wildfires on aerosol loading. These empirical observations will help better constrain projected increases in organic aerosol loading with increased fire activity under climate change.
• Keywords:
  Aerosols Air Quality Arid Regions Atmospheric Science Biological Models Climatic Changes Depth-area-duration (Hydrometeorology) Droughts Ecology Environmental Sciences Meteorology Optical Detectors Pollution Projection Systems Biology Trend Surface Analysis Wildfires Air Quality Arid Regions Atmospheric Science Biological Models Climatic Changes Environmental Sciences Optical Detectors Systems Biology Trend Surface Analysis

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• Source:
  Environ. Res. Lett. 12 014006 ; DownloadArticle PDF
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa510a
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA14NES432003
• Place as Subject:
  United States ; West (U.S.) ; North America
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  PMC
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:d3a49859286c3c1da05b5bc48796b4ac07ce53f8667174ad68fb3a8933124007f4b8cacd98a237fd446a8bdeabba1b59612c4bad8c06d1d9605279d1633972f3
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/26073/noaa_26073_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.44 MB ]