The Coupled Aerosol and Tracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (CATT-BRAMS) – Part 2: Model sensitivity to the biomass burning inventories

摘要

We describe an estimation technique for biomass burning emissions in SouthAmerica based on a combination of remote-sensing fire products and fieldobservations, the Brazilian Biomass Burning Emission Model (3BEM). For eachfire pixel detected by remote sensing, the mass of the emitted tracer iscalculated based on field observations of fire properties related to thetype of vegetation burning. The burnt area is estimated from theinstantaneous fire size retrieved by remote sensing, when available, or fromstatistical properties of the burn scars. The sources are then spatially andtemporally distributed and assimilated daily by the Coupled Aerosol andTracer Transport model to the Brazilian developments on the RegionalAtmospheric Modeling System (CATT-BRAMS) in order to perform the prognosisof related tracer concentrations. Three other biomass burning inventories,including GFEDv2 and EDGAR, are simultaneously used to compare the emissionstrength in terms of the resultant tracer distribution. We also assess theeffect of using the daily time resolution of fire emissions by includingruns with monthly-averaged emissions. We evaluate the performance of themodel using the different emission estimation techniques by comparing themodel results with direct measurements of carbon monoxide both near-surfaceand airborne, as well as remote sensing derived products. The model resultsobtained using the 3BEM methodology of estimation introduced in this papershow relatively good agreement with the direct measurements and MOPITT dataproduct, suggesting the reliability of the model at local to regionalscales.