Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 115, Issue 50, Pages E11595-E11603Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1806868115
Keywords
black carbon; biomass burning; climate change; high altitude; mixing state
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Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [91644218]
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2017YFC0210104]
- Guangdong Innovative and Entrepreneurial Research Team Program [2016ZT06N263]
- German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
- German Research Foundation (DFG) within the Priority Program 1294
- Max Planck Society (MPG)
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Wildfires inject large amounts of black carbon (BC) particles into the atmosphere, which can reach the lowermost stratosphere (LMS) and cause strong radiative forcing. During a 14-month period of observations on board a passenger aircraft flying between Europe and North America, we found frequent and widespread biomass burning (BB) plumes, influencing 16 of 160 flight hours in the LMS. The average BC mass concentrations in these plumes (similar to 140 ng.m(-3), standard temperature and pressure) were over 20 times higher than the background concentration (similar to 6 ng.m(-3)) with more than 100-fold enhanced peak values (up to similar to 720 ng.m(-3)). In the LMS, nearly all BC particles were covered with a thick coating. The average mass equivalent diameter of the BC particle cores was similar to 120 nm with a mean coating thickness of similar to 150 nm in the BB plume and similar to 90 nm with a coating of similar to 125 nm in the background. In a BB plume that was encountered twice, we also found a high diameter growth rate of similar to 1 nm.h(-1) due to the BC particle coatings. The observed high concentrations and thick coatings of BC particles demonstrate that wildfires can induce strong local heating in the LMS and may have a significant influence on the regional radiative forcing of climate.
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