DOE OSTI · 2565336
Radiative impact of record-breaking wildfires from integrated ground-based data
Abstract
The radiative effects of wildfires have been traditionally estimated by models using radiative transfer calculations. Assessment of model-predicted radiative effects commonly involves information on observation-based aerosol optical properties. However, lack or incompleteness of this information for dense plumes generated by intense wildfires reduces substantially the applicability of this assessment. Here we introduce a novel method that provides additional observational constraints for such assessments using widely available ground-based measurements of shortwave and spectrally resolved irradiances and aerosol optical depth (AOD) in the visible and near-infrared spectral ranges. We apply our method to quantify the radiative impact of the record-breaking wildfires that occurred in the Western US in September 2020. For our quantification we use integrated ground-based data collected at the Atmospheric Measurements Laboratory in Richland, Washington, USA with a location frequently downwind of wildfires in the Western US. We demonstrate that remarkably dense plumes generated by these wildfires strongly reduced the solar surface irradiance (up to 70% or 450 Wm -2 for total shortwave flux) and almost completely masked the sun from view due to extremely large AOD (above 10 at 500 nm wavelength). We also demonstrate that the plume-induced radiative impact is comparable in magnitude with those produced by a violent volcano eruption occurred in the Western US in 1980 and continental cumuli.
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Kassianov, Evgueni [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)], Flynn, Connor J. [Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States)], Barnard, James C. [Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States)], Berg, Larry K. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000233629492), Beus, Sherman J. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)], Chen, Xingyuan [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)], China, Swarup [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:000000017670335X), Comstock, Jennifer M. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000241837355), Ermold, Brian D. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)], Fakoya, Abdulamid A. [Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States)], Kulkarni, Gourihar [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000180694281), Lata, Nurun Nahar [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)], Mcdowell, Nate G. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA (United States)], Morris, Victor R. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000238431864), Pekour, Mikhail S. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000298210078), Rasmussen, Hans J. [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)], Riihimaki, Laura D. [Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO (United States); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States)], Shi, Mingjie [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000224694831), Shrivastava, Manish [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000290532400), Telg, Hagen [Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environmental Sciences, Boulder, CO (United States); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States)], Zelenyuk, Alla [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000206740910), Zhang, Damao [Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)] (ORCID:000000023518292X). 2025-03-10. Radiative impact of record-breaking wildfires from integrated ground-based data. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-85103-1
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