Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Publication Date
2011
Volume
11
Issue
14
Disciplines
Biochemistry | Chemistry | Life Sciences | Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Abstract
We report airborne measurements of emission factors (EF) for trace gases and PM(2.5) made in southern Mexico in March of 2006 on 6 crop residue fires, 3 tropical dry forest fires, 8 savanna fires, 1 garbage fire, and 7 mountain pine-oak forest fires. The savanna fire EF were measured early in the local dry season and when compared to EF measured late in the African dry season they were at least 1.7 times larger for NO(x), NH(3), H(2), and most non-methane organic compounds. Our measurements suggest that urban deposition and high windspeed may also be associated with significantly elevated NOx EF. When considering all fires sampled, the percentage of particles containing soot increased from 15 to 60% as the modified combustion efficiency increased from 0.88 to 0.98. We estimate that about 175 Tg of fuel was consumed by open burning of biomass and garbage and as biofuel (mainly wood cooking fires) in Mexico in 2006. Combining the fuel consumption estimates with our EF measurements suggests that the above combustion sources account for a large fraction of the reactive trace gases and more than 90% of the total primary, fine carbonaceous particles emitted by all combustion sources in Mexico.
DOI
10.5194/acp-11-6787-2011
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Yokelson, Robert J.; Burling, I. R.; Urbanski, S. P.; Atlas, E.; Adachi, K.; Buseck, P. R.; Wiedinmyer, C.; Akagi, S. K.; Toohey, D. W.; and Wold, C. E., "Trace Gas and Particle Emissions from Open Biomass Burning in Mexico" (2011). Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications. 1.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/chem_pubs/1