Formaldehyde evolution in US wildfire plumes during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality experiment (FIREX-AQ)

Formaldehyde (HCHO) is one of the most abundant non-methane volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by fires. HCHO also undergoes chemical production and loss as a fire plume ages, and it can be an important oxidant precursor. In this study, we disentangle the processes controlling HCHO by examining its evolution in wildfire plumes sampled by the NASA DC-8 during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality experiment (FIREX-AQ) field campaign. In 9 of the 12 analyzed plumes, dilution-normalized HCHO increases with physical age (range 1-6 h). The balance of HCHO loss (mainly via photolysis) and production (via OH-initiated VOC oxidation) seems to control the sign and magnitude of this trend. Plume-average OH concentrations, calculated from VOC decays, range from -0.5 (+/- 0.5) x 10(6) to 5.3 (+/- 0.7) x 10(6) cm(-3). The production and loss rates of dilution-normalized HCHO seem to decrease with plume age. Plume-to-plume variability in dilution-normalized secondary HCHO production correlates with OH abundance rather than normalized OH reactivity, suggesting that OH is the main driver of fire-to-fire variability in HCHO secondary production. Analysis suggests an effective HCHO yield of 0.33 (+/- 0.05) per VOC molecule oxidized for the 12 wildfire plumes. This finding can help connect space-based HCHO observations to the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere and to VOC emissions.

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Author Liao, Jin
Wolfe, Glenn M.
Hannun, Reem A.
St. Clair, Jason M.
Hanisco, Thomas F.
Gilman, Jessica B.
Lamplugh, Aaron
Selimovic, Vanessa
Diskin, Glenn S.
Nowak, John B.
Halliday, Hannah S.
DiGangi, Joshua P.
Hall, Samuel R.
Ullmann, Kirk
Holmes, Christopher D.
Fite, Charles H.
Agastra, Anxhelo
Ryerson, Thomas B.
Peischl, Jeff
Bourgeois, Ilann
Warneke, Carsten
Coggon, Matthew M.
Gkatzelis, Georgios I.
Sekimoto, Kanako
Fried, Alan
Richter, Dirk
Weibring, Petter
Apel, Eric C.
Hornbrook, Rebecca S.
Brown, Steven S.
Womack, Caroline C.
Robinson, Michael A.
Washenfelder, Rebecca A.
Veres, Patrick R.
Neuman, J. Andrew
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2021-12-17T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2023-08-18T18:33:44.243235
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:24963
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Liao, Jin, Wolfe, Glenn M., Hannun, Reem A., St. Clair, Jason M., Hanisco, Thomas F., Gilman, Jessica B., Lamplugh, Aaron, Selimovic, Vanessa, Diskin, Glenn S., Nowak, John B., Halliday, Hannah S., DiGangi, Joshua P., Hall, Samuel R., Ullmann, Kirk, Holmes, Christopher D., Fite, Charles H., Agastra, Anxhelo, Ryerson, Thomas B., Peischl, Jeff, Bourgeois, Ilann, Warneke, Carsten, Coggon, Matthew M., Gkatzelis, Georgios I., Sekimoto, Kanako, Fried, Alan, Richter, Dirk, Weibring, Petter, Apel, Eric C., Hornbrook, Rebecca S., Brown, Steven S., Womack, Caroline C., Robinson, Michael A., Washenfelder, Rebecca A., Veres, Patrick R., Neuman, J. Andrew. (2021). Formaldehyde evolution in US wildfire plumes during the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality experiment (FIREX-AQ). UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d75h7ksv. Accessed 31 January 2025.

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