Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Geophysical Research Letters

Publisher

American Geophysical Union Publications

Publication Date

1-2014

Volume

41

Issue

2

Disciplines

Biochemistry | Chemistry | Life Sciences | Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Abstract

Single scattering albedo (ω) of fresh biomass burning (BB) aerosols produced from 92 controlled laboratory combustion experiments of 20 different woods and grasses was analyzed to determine the factors that control the variability in ω. Results show that ω varies strongly with fire-integrated modified combustion efficiency (MCEFI)—higher MCEFI results in lower ω values and greater spectral dependence of ω. A parameterization of ω as a function of MCEFI for fresh BB aerosols is derived from the laboratory data and is evaluated by field observations from two wildfires. The parameterization suggests that MCEFI explains 60% of the variability in ω, while the 40% unexplained variability could be accounted for by other parameters such as fuel type. Our parameterization provides a promising framework that requires further validation and is amenable for refinements to predict ω with greater confidence, which is critical for estimating the radiative forcing of BB aerosols.

Keywords

biomass burning, single scattering albedo, combustion efficiency, brown carbon, wavelength dependence, FLAME-4

DOI

10.1002/2013GL058392

Comments

Link to Publisher's Version: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058392/full

Rights

© 2013 the authors

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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