Progress Made Towards Including Wildfires In Real-time Cloud Resolving Forecasts at Noaa/esrl and Examining Its Impact Upon Weather and Air Quality

Abstract

The growing influence of biomass burning emissions on air quality, human health, and feedbacks to the climate system has become undeniable in recent years. Recognized impacts include enhanced emissions of greenhouse gases changes in atmospheric chemistry, deposition of trace gases and particles onto Arctic surfaces, and altered patterns of precipitation. Chemical Transport Models use a variety of methods to include emissions from fires, and different applications and results can vary significantly. Variability in emission estimates can result from selection of area burned products, ecosystem types, fuel contained in ecosystems and the amount of fuel consumed, which is directly related to weather and climate. Each of these can differ by an order of magnitude, which can significantly influence the simulated radiation and chemistry products produced. From the ground up through the fire column, assumptions in fire behavior (i.e. level of severity, energy release rate, flaming versus smoldering combustion) and injection height can lead to a variety of emission estimations . The focus of this session is on the distinct assumptions that are made to estimate bottom-up fire emissions for use in regional and global models. Defining methodologies and the unique contribution of the variety of model assumptions will be a major goal of this session. We are particularly interested in the differences that result from the variety of assumptions and the disparity in model simulations that stem from these distinctions, because this is where we will find the interesting science questions and where we can begin to move more closely towards approximating reality.