Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia
Fires including peatland burning in Southeast Asia have become a major concern to the general public as well as governments in the region. This is because aerosols emitted from such fires can cause persistent haze events under certain weather conditions in downwind locations, degrading visibility an...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Copernicus GmbH
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109717 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2880-4807 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3979-4747 |
| _version_ | 1826204953334513664 |
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| author | Lee, Hsiang-He Bar Or, Rotem Zvi Wang, Chien |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science Lee, Hsiang-He Bar Or, Rotem Zvi Wang, Chien |
| author_sort | Lee, Hsiang-He |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Fires including peatland burning in Southeast Asia have become a major concern to the general public as well as governments in the region. This is because aerosols emitted from such fires can cause persistent haze events under certain weather conditions in downwind locations, degrading visibility and causing human health issues. In order to improve our understanding of the spatiotemporal coverage and influence of biomass burning aerosols in Southeast Asia, we have used surface visibility and particulate matter concentration observations, supplemented by decade-long (2003 to 2014) simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with a fire aerosol module, driven by high-resolution biomass burning emission inventories. We find that in the past decade, fire aerosols are responsible for nearly all events with very low visibility (< 7 km). Fire aerosols alone are also responsible for a substantial fraction of low-visibility events (visibility < 10 km) in the major metropolitan areas of Southeast Asia: up to 39 % in Bangkok, 36 % in Kuala Lumpur, and 34 % in Singapore. Biomass burning in mainland Southeast Asia accounts for the largest contribution to total fire-produced PM[subscript 2.5] in Bangkok (99 %), while biomass burning in Sumatra is a major contributor to fire-produced PM[subscript 2.5] in Kuala Lumpur (50 %) and Singapore (41 %). To examine the general situation across the region, we have further defined and derived a new integrated metric for 50 cities of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): the haze exposure day (HED), which measures the annual exposure days of these cities to low visibility (< 10 km) caused by particulate matter pollution. It is shown that HEDs have increased steadily in the past decade across cities with both high and low populations. Fire events alone are found to be responsible for up to about half of the total HEDs. Our results suggest that in order to improve the overall air quality in Southeast Asia, mitigation policies targeting both biomass burning and fossil fuel burning sources need to be implemented. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:03:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/109717 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:03:39Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Copernicus GmbH |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1097172022-09-28T11:50:50Z Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia Lee, Hsiang-He Bar Or, Rotem Zvi Wang, Chien Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Global Change Science Bar Or, Rotem Zvi Wang, Chien Fires including peatland burning in Southeast Asia have become a major concern to the general public as well as governments in the region. This is because aerosols emitted from such fires can cause persistent haze events under certain weather conditions in downwind locations, degrading visibility and causing human health issues. In order to improve our understanding of the spatiotemporal coverage and influence of biomass burning aerosols in Southeast Asia, we have used surface visibility and particulate matter concentration observations, supplemented by decade-long (2003 to 2014) simulations using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model with a fire aerosol module, driven by high-resolution biomass burning emission inventories. We find that in the past decade, fire aerosols are responsible for nearly all events with very low visibility (< 7 km). Fire aerosols alone are also responsible for a substantial fraction of low-visibility events (visibility < 10 km) in the major metropolitan areas of Southeast Asia: up to 39 % in Bangkok, 36 % in Kuala Lumpur, and 34 % in Singapore. Biomass burning in mainland Southeast Asia accounts for the largest contribution to total fire-produced PM[subscript 2.5] in Bangkok (99 %), while biomass burning in Sumatra is a major contributor to fire-produced PM[subscript 2.5] in Kuala Lumpur (50 %) and Singapore (41 %). To examine the general situation across the region, we have further defined and derived a new integrated metric for 50 cities of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): the haze exposure day (HED), which measures the annual exposure days of these cities to low visibility (< 10 km) caused by particulate matter pollution. It is shown that HEDs have increased steadily in the past decade across cities with both high and low populations. Fire events alone are found to be responsible for up to about half of the total HEDs. Our results suggest that in order to improve the overall air quality in Southeast Asia, mitigation policies targeting both biomass burning and fossil fuel burning sources need to be implemented. Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Center National Science Foundation (U.S.) (AGS-1339264) United States. Department of Energy (DE-FG02-94ER61937) United States. Environmental Protection Agency (XA-83600001-1) 2017-06-07T19:46:20Z 2017-06-07T19:46:20Z 2017-01 2016-12 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1680-7324 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109717 Lee, Hsiang-He, Rotem Z. Bar-Or, and Chien Wang. “Biomass Burning Aerosols and the Low-Visibility Events in Southeast Asia.” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 17.2 (2017): 965–980. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2880-4807 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3979-4747 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/acp-17-965-2017 Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ application/pdf Copernicus GmbH Copernicus Publications |
| spellingShingle | Lee, Hsiang-He Bar Or, Rotem Zvi Wang, Chien Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia |
| title | Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia |
| title_full | Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia |
| title_fullStr | Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia |
| title_full_unstemmed | Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia |
| title_short | Biomass burning aerosols and the low-visibility events in Southeast Asia |
| title_sort | biomass burning aerosols and the low visibility events in southeast asia |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/109717 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2880-4807 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3979-4747 |
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