Date of Award
5-1-2024
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
College/School/Department
Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences
Dissertation/Thesis Chair
Cheng-Hsuan Lu
Committee Members
Fangqun Yu, Scott Miller, Liming Zhou
Subject Categories
Atmospheric Sciences
Abstract
An increasing trend of wildfire activity over North America over the past decades has been observed. Elevated surface fine mode particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration and reduction of solar radiation during the smoke episodes have been widely reported. Given that the intensity and frequency of wildfires are expected to increase under changing climate, the impact of smoke aerosols on air quality and solar energy could become more significant. This study aims to characterize the transport of smoke aerosols and quantify their impact on local air quality and solar energy over New York (NY) and California (CA) States. A multi-year analysis of smoke cases during the summer of 2017-2022, case studies of smoke events in September of 2017 and June of 2023 over NY, and numerical experiments of the 2020 wildfire over CA were conducted. Various analyses were conducted, including 1) identification of smoke plumes using satellite measurements, ground-based observations, and aerosol reanalysis products, 2) quantification of the contribution of smoke aerosols to local air quality and solar radiation, and 3) characterization of the transport process and vertical mixing of smoke events. Results of multi-year analysis showed that transported smoke aerosols introduced an increase of daily PM2.5 of 3-4 ?g m-3 on average over NYS. Besides, 30.0% - 40.0% of the polluted days were associated with transported smoke aerosols. The record-breaking smoke event in June 2023 led to an increase of PM2.5 by 15-fold - 60-fold while annually occurred less extreme smoke events caused an enhancement of PM2.5 by 3-fold. Analysis of case studies reveals that synoptic subsidence, entrainment process, and turbulent mixing collectively contributed to the downward transport of smoke aerosols and the enhancement of surface PM2.5 concentrations. During the summer of 2020 over CA, results of model simulation show that wildfire activity leads to an increase of monthly aerosol optical depth by 0.2-0.7 and reduction of clear-sky global horizontal irradiance by 3-10%. Future studies considering a range of variability in wildfire activities (e.g. geographic location, size, and time of year) and the key factors which determine air quality and solar energy impacts of the transported smoke aerosols, such as plume rise, large-scale circulation, aerosol physical/chemical processes, and PBL evolution, are recommended.
Recommended Citation
Lin, Chin-An, "The Impact Of Wildfire Activities On Air Quality And Solar Energy In New York And California" (2024). Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024). 3343.
https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/legacy-etd/3343
