Document Type

Article

Publication Date

January 2014

Publication Title

Boreal Environment Research

Volume

19

Disciplines

Meteorology | Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology

Abstract

During a prescribed fire experiment, CO2 and particle number concentrations, light scattering and absorption coefficients were measured from a Cessna 172 airplane. Peak number concentrations were (3 ± 1) x 106 cm–3 and they decreased faster than what can be explained by coagulation alone. The single-scattering albedo of particles grew from the values of 0.4 ± 0.1 closest to the emissions to the values of 0.8 ± 0.1 at the distance of 400 m from the emissions. The mean Ângström exponent of absorption, 1.70 ± 0.24, is in line with the published spectral absorption values of wood-smoke aerosol. The estimated emission factors were 1600 ± 1020, 5.9 ± 6.3 and 1.4 ± 1.0 g kg–1 (dry biomass), for CO2, particulate organic matter and black carbon (BC), respectively, and (4.8 ± 2.9) x 1015 particles per kg (dry biomass) for the particle number. The BC emission factor may be overestimated by a factor of about 1.6 ± 0.2 due to condensation of organics on the filter of the absorption photometer. During the smoldering phase, there were clear indications of new particle formation.

Comments

This article originally appeared in Boreal Environment Research, volume 19, suppl. B, 2014, and can be found online at the following link: http://www.borenv.net/BER/pdfs/ber19/ber19B-153.pdf

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