Emission from biomass burning

Jonquieres, I., A. Marenco, A. Maalej, and F. Rohrer, Study of Ozone Formation and Transatlantic Transport from Biomass Burning Emissions over West Africa during the Airborne Tropospheric Ozone Campaigns TROPOZ I and TROPOZ II, J. Geophys. Res., 103, 19059-19073 (1998). 

Many studies have shown that in North Europe major biomass burning emissions are mostly linked with wood smoke from fireplaces and stoves, whereas in Southern Europe wildfires can be the most important biomass combustion source. The Mediterranean region is frequently under the influence of this phenomenon, especially during dry periods. Although wildfires can be a major contributor of particulate matter into the atmosphere, forest fire emissions are poorly quantified in the literature, due to the difficulties induced in estimating their temporal and spatial distribution. 

In Amazonia there are two very different atmospheric conditions the wet season (mosdy from November to June) and the dry season Quly-October) (see Marengo and Nobre, this volume). Biomass burning emissions dominate completely the atmospheric concentrations over large areas of the Amazon basin during the dry season (Artaxo et al. 1988). In the wet season, a very clean atmosphere shows very low concentrations for most of trace gases and aerosol concentration (Artaxo et al. 1990). 

Table 2.47 Biomass burning emissions in Tg C yr (related to the late 1990s), values adapted and rounded from Andreae (2004).

Christian, T. J., Kleiss, B., Yokelson, R. J. et al. (2003) Comprehensive laboratory measurements of biomass-burning emissions 1. Emissions from Indonesian, African, and other fuels. J. Geophys. Res. 108, D4719. 

Sanhueza, E. Cmtzen, P.J. Fernandez, E., 1999 Production of Boundary Layer Ozone from Tropical American Savannah Biomass Burning Emissions , in Atmospheric Environment, 33 4969-4975. 

Meyer-Amek et al. (2005) examined CH2O column data over Africa for September 1997. They interpreted the data using a trajectory analysis coupled with a chemistry model. They found similar formaldehyde concentrations deriving from biomass burning and from biogenic emissions from woody savannah and tropical rainforest. The formaldehyde concentrations for the biogenic emissions were found to occur close... 

Tropical forests and savannas are the primary source of C emissions that originate from biomass burning (73, 75). However, temperate forests are also sources of atmospheric carbon. Harmon et al. (77) reported that conversion of primary temperate forests to younger, second-growth forests lead to increases in atmospheric CO2 levels, due to losses in long-term carbon storage within these forests. They ascertained that timber exploitation of 5 million hectares of primaiy forests in the Pacific Northwest of North America during the past century has resulted in the addition of 1,500 Tg of C to the atmosphere. 

In summary, biomass burning is a major source of many trace gasses, especially the emissions of CO2, CH4, NMHC, NO,, HCN, CH3 CN, and CH3 Cl (73). In the tropics, these emissions lead to local increases in the production of O3. Biomass burning may also be responsible for as much as one-third of the total ozone produced in the troposphere (74). However, CH3 Cl from biomass burning is a significant source for active Cl in the stratosphere and plays a significant role in stratospheric ozone depletion (73). 

There are a wide variety of initial sources of NOs for the ice sheets, including bacterial emissions, biomass burning, photochemical reactions, and lightning. These are generally low-mid-latitude continental sources. This very complicated mixed source renders interpretations of ice-core NOJ" concentrations difficult. A further complication results from possible limitations on delivery of NOT to ice-core sites by atmospheric circulation, due to the large distance from... 

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs, sometimes also called polynuclear aromatics, PNA) are a hazardous class of widespread pollutants. The parent structures of the common PAHs are shown in Fig. 4 and the alkylated homologs are generally minor in combustion emissions. PAHs are produced by all natural combustion processes (e.g., wild fires) and from anthropogenic activity such as fossil fuels combustion, biomass burning, chemical manufacturing, petroleum refining, metallurgical processes, coal utilization, tar production, etc. [6,9,15,18, 20,24,131-139]. 

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