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1. Wildfire Smoke Observations in the Western United States from the Airborne Wyoming Cloud Lidar during the BB-FLUX Project. Part I: Data Description and Methodology

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-21-0092.1  

   Deng, Min; Wang, Zhien; Volkamer, Rainer; Snider, Jefferson R.; Oolman, Larry; Plummer, David M.; Kille, Natalie; Zarzana, Kyle J.; Lee, Christopher F.; Campos, Teresa; et al (May 2022, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology)

   Abstract During the summer of 2018, the upward-pointing Wyoming Cloud Lidar (WCL) was deployed on board the University of Wyoming King Air (UWKA) research aircraft for the Biomass Burning Flux Measurements of Trace Gases and Aerosols (BB-FLUX) field campaign. This paper describes the generation of calibrated attenuated backscatter coefficients and aerosol extinction coefficients from the WCL measurements. The retrieved aerosol extinction coefficients at the flight level strongly correlate (correlation coefficient, rr > 0.8) with in situ aerosol concentration and carbon monoxide (CO) concentration, providing a first-order estimate for converting WCL extinction coefficients into vertically resolved CO and aerosol concentration within wildfire smoke plumes. The integrated CO column concentrations from the WCL data in nonextinguished profiles also correlate (rr = 0.7) with column measurements by the University of Colorado Airborne Solar Occultation Flux instrument, indicating the validity of WCL-derived extinction coefficients. During BB-FLUX, the UWKA sampled smoke plumes from more than 20 wildfires during 35 flights over the western United States. Seventy percent of flight time was spent below 3 km above ground level (AGL) altitude, although the UWKA ascended up to 6 km AGL to sample the top of some deep smoke plumes. The upward-pointing WCL observed a nearly equal amount of thin and dense smoke below 2 km and above 5 km due to the flight purpose of targeted fresh fire smoke. Between 2 and 5 km, where most of the wildfire smoke resided, the WCL observed slightly more thin smoke than dense smoke due to smoke spreading. Extinction coefficients in dense smoke were 2–10 times stronger, and dense smoke tended to have larger depolarization ratio, associated with irregular aerosol particles. 

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2. Sources and Trends of CO, O3, and Aerosols at the Mount Bachelor Observatory (2004–2022)

   https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos16010085  

   Bernays, Noah; Johnson, Jakob; Jaffe, Daniel (January 2025, Atmosphere)

   Understanding baseline O3 is important as it defines the fraction of O3 coming from global sources and not subject to local control. We report the occurrence and sources of high baseline ozone days, defined as a day where the daily maximum 8 h average (MDA8) exceeds 70 ppb, as observed at the Mount Bachelor Observatory (MBO, 2.8 km asl) in Central Oregon from 2004 to 2022. We used various indicators and enhancement ratios to categorize each high-O3 day: carbon monoxide (CO), aerosol scattering, the water vapor mixing ratio (WV), the aerosol scattering-to-CO ratio, backward trajectories, and the NOAA Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke maps. Using these, we identified four causes of high-O3 days at the MBO: Upper Troposphere/Lower Stratosphere intrusions (UTLS), Asian long-range transport (ALRT), a mixed UTLS/ALRT category, and events enhanced by wildfire emissions. Wildfire sources were further divided into two categories: smoke transported in the boundary layer to the MBO and smoke transported in the free troposphere from more distant fires. Over the 19-year period, 167 high-ozone days were identified, with an increasing fraction due to contributions from wildfire emissions and a decreasing fraction of ALRT events. We further evaluated trends in the O3 and CO data distributions by season. For O3, we found an overall increase in the mean and median values of 2.2 and 1.5 ppb, respectively, from the earliest part of the record (2004–2013) compared to the later part (2014–2022), but no significant linear trends in any season. For CO, we found a significant positive trend in the summer 95th percentiles, associated with increasing fires in the Western U.S., and a strong negative trend in the springtime values at all percentiles (1.6% yr−1 for 50th percentile). This decline was likely associated with decreasing emissions from East Asia. Overall, our findings are consistent with the positive trend in wildfires in the Western United States and the efforts in Asia to decrease emissions. This work demonstrates the changing influence of these two source categories on global background O3 and CO. 

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3. Wildfire Smoke Observations in the Western United States from the Airborne Wyoming Cloud Lidar during the BB-FLUX Project. Part II: Vertical Structure and Plume Injection Height

   https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-21-0093.1  

   Deng, Min; Volkamer, Rainer M.; Wang, Zhien; Snider, Jefferson R.; Kille, Natalie; Romero-Alvarez, Leidy J. (May 2022, Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology)

   Abstract The western U.S. wildfire smoke plumes observed by the upward-pointing Wyoming Cloud Lidar (WCL) during the Biomass Burning Fluxes of Trace Gases and Aerosols (BB-FLUX) project are investigated in a two-part paper. Part II here presents the reconstructed vertical structures of seven plumes from airborne WCL measurements. The vertical structures evident in the fire plume cross sections, supported by in situ measurements, showed that the fire plumes had distinct macrophysical and microphysical properties, which are closely related to the plume transport, fire emission intensity, and thermodynamic structure in the boundary layer. All plumes had an injection layer between 2.8 and 4.0 km above mean sea level, which is generally below the identified boundary layer top height. Plumes that transported upward out of the boundary layer, such as the Rabbit Foot and Pole Creek fires, formed a higher plume at around 5.5 km. The largest and highest Pole Creek fire plume was transported farthest and was sampled by University of Wyoming King Air aircraft at 170 km, or 2.3 h, downwind. It was associated with the warmest, driest, deepest boundary layer and the highest wind speed and turbulence. The Watson Creek fire plume intensified in the afternoon with stronger CO emission and larger smoke plume height than in the morning, indicating a fire diurnal cycle, but some fire plumes did not intensify in the afternoon. There were pockets of relatively large irregular aerosol particles at the tops of plumes from active fires. In less-active fire plumes, the WCL depolarization ratio and passive cavity aerosol spectrometer probe mass mean diameter maximized at a height that was low in the plume. 

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4. Observationally constrained representation of brown carbon emissions from wildfires in a chemical transport model

   https://doi.org/10.1039/D1EA00059D  

   Neyestani, Soroush E.; Saleh, Rawad (March 2022, Environmental Science: Atmospheres)

   The month of August 2015 featured extensive wildfires in the Northwestern U.S. and no significant fires in Alaska and Canada. With the majority of carbonaceous aerosols (CA), including black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC), over the U.S. dominated by emissions from Northwestern wildfires, this month presented a unique opportunity for testing wildfire BrC representation in the Weather Research and Forecasting model with chemistry (WRF-Chem). We performed parallel simulations that (1) did not account for BrC absorption, (2) accounted for BrC absorption, and (3) accounted for BrC absorption as well as its decay due to photobleaching. We used a comprehensive set of extensive and pseudo-intensive optical properties, namely the aerosol optical depth (AOD), aerosol absorption optical depth (AAOD), absorption Ångström exponent (AAE), and single scattering albedo (SSA) to constrain the model output against observations from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET). We found that accounting for BrC absorption and photobleaching resulted in the best agreement with observations in terms of aerosol absorption (AAOD and AAE). However, the model severely underestimated AOD and SSA compared to observations. We attributed this discrepancy to missing scattering due to missing secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation from wildfire emissions in the model. To test this hypothesis, we applied a zeroth-order representation of wildfire SOA, which significantly improved the AOD and SSA model-observation comparison. Our findings indicate that BrC absorption, the decay of its absorption due to photobleaching, as well as SOA formation should be accounted for in chemical transport models in order to accurately represent CA emissions from wildfires. 

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5. Free tropospheric aerosols at the Mt. Bachelor Observatory: more oxidized and higher sulfate content compared to boundary layer aerosols

   https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-19-1571-2019  

   Zhou, Shan; Collier, Sonya; Jaffe, Daniel A.; Zhang, Qi (January 2019, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics)

   Abstract. Understanding the properties and life cycle processes of aerosol particles inregional air masses is crucial for constraining the climate impacts ofaerosols on a global scale. In this study, characteristics of aerosols in theboundary layer (BL) and free troposphere (FT) of a remote continental regionin the western US were studied using a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosolmass spectrometer (HR-AMS) deployed at the Mount Bachelor Observatory (MBO;2763 m a.s.l.) in central Oregon in summer 2013. In the absence of wildfireinfluence, the average (±1σ) concentration of non-refractorysubmicrometer particulate matter (NR-PM1) at MBO was 2.8 (±2.8)µg m−3 and 84 % of the mass was organic. The otherNR-PM1 components were sulfate (11 %), ammonium (2.8 %),and nitrate (0.9 %). The organic aerosol (OA) at MBO from these cleanperiods showed clear diurnal variations driven by the boundary layer dynamicswith significantly higher concentrations occurring during daytime, upslopeconditions. NR-PM1 contained a higher mass fraction of sulfate andwas frequently acidic when MBO resided in the FT. In addition, OA in the FTwas found to be highly oxidized (average O∕C of 1.17) with lowvolatility while OA in BL-influenced air masses was moderately oxidized(average O∕C of 0.67) and semivolatile. There are indications thatthe BL-influenced OA observed at MBO was more enriched in organonitrates andorganosulfur compounds (e.g., MSA) and appeared to be representative ofbiogenic secondary organic aerosol (SOA) originated in the BL. A summary ofthe chemical compositions of NR-PM1 measured at a number of otherhigh-altitude locations in the world is presented and similar contrastsbetween FT and BL aerosols were observed. The significant compositional andphysical differences observed between FT and BL aerosols may have importantimplications for understanding the climate effects of regional backgroundaerosols. 

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