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Implications of emission inventory choice for modeling fire-related pollution in the U.S.
Citation:
Koplitz, S. AND C. Nolte. Implications of emission inventory choice for modeling fire-related pollution in the U.S. 36th AAAR Annual Conference, Raleigh, NC, October 16 - 19, 2017.
Impact/Purpose:
Presented at the 2017 AAAR Annual Conference.
Description:
Fires are a major source of particulate matter (PM), one of the most harmful ambient pollutants for human health globally. Within the U.S., fire emissions can account for more than 30% of total PM emissions annually. In order to represent the influence of fire emissions on atmospheric composition, regional and global chemical transport models (CTMs) rely on fire emission inventories developed from estimates of burned area (i.e. fire size and location). Burned area can be estimated using a range of top-down and bottom-up approaches, including satellite-derived remote sensing and on-the-ground incident reports. While burned area estimates agree with each other reasonably well in the western U.S. (within 20-30% for most years during 2002-2014), estimates for the southern U.S. vary by more than a factor of 3. Differences in burned area estimation methods lead to significant variability in the spatial and temporal allocation of emissions across fire emission inventory platforms. In this work, we implement fire emission estimates for 2011 from three different fire emission products (NEI, FINN, and GFED4s) into the CMAQ regional air quality model to quantify and characterize differences in simulated fire-related PM and ozone concentrations across the contiguous U.S. due solely to the emission inventory used. Understanding the sensitivity of modeling fire-related PM and ozone in the U.S. to fire emission inventory choice will inform future efforts to assess the implications of present and future fire activity for air quality and human health at national and global scales.
