Jean-Pierre Cammas

Air pollution during the 2003 European heat wave as seen by MOZAIC airliners

This study presents an analysis of both MOZAIC profiles above Frankfurt and Lagrangian dispersion model simulations for the 2003 European heat wave. The comparison of MOZAIC measurements in summer 2003 with the 11-year MOZAIC climatology reflects strong temperature anomalies (exceeding 4 C) throughout the lower troposphere. Higher positive anomalies of temperature and negative anomalies of both wind speed and relative humidity are found for the period defined here as the heat wave (2–14 August 2003), compared to the periods before (16–31 July 2003) and after (16–31 August 2003) the heat wave. In addition, Lagrangian model simulations in backward mode indicate the suppressed long-range transport in the midto lower troposphere and the enhanced southern origin of air masses for all tropospheric levels during the heat wave. Ozone and carbon monoxide also present strong anomalies (both ∼+40 ppbv) during the heat wave, with a maximum vertical extension reaching 6 km altitude around 11 August 2003. Pollution in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) is enhanced during the day, with ozone mixing ratios two times higher than climatological values. This is due to a combination of factors, such as high temperature and radiation, stagnation of air masses and weak dry deposition, which favour the accumulation of ozone precursors and the build-up of ozone. A negligible role of a stratospheric-origin ozone tracer has been found for the lower troposphere in this study. From 29 July to 15 August 2003 forest fires burnt around 0.3×106 ha in Portugal and added to atmospheric pollution in Europe. Layers with enhanced CO and NO y mixing ratios, advected from Portugal, were crossed by the MOZAIC aircraft in the free troposphere over Frankfurt. A series of forward and backward Lagrangian model simulations have been performed to investigate the origin of anomalies durCorrespondence to: M. Tressol (marc.tressol@aero.obs-mip.fr) ing the whole heat wave. European anthropogenic emissions present the strongest contribution to the measured CO levels in the lower troposphere (near 30%). This source is followed by Portuguese forest fires which affect the lower troposphere after 6 August 2003 and even the PBL around 10 August 2003. The averaged biomass burning contribution reaches 35% during the affected period. Anthropogenic CO of North American origin only marginally influences CO levels over Europe during that period.

The influence of biomass burning and transport on tropospheric composition over the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Equatorial Africa during the West African monsoon in 2006

Biomass burning (BB) in southern Africa is the largest emission source of CO and O 3 precursors within Africa during the West African Monsoon (WAM) between June and August. The long range transport and chemical processing of such emissions thus has the potential to exert a dominant influence on the composition of the tropical troposphere over Equatorial Africa (EA) and the Tropical Atlantic Ocean (TAO). We have performed simulations using a three-dimensional global chemistry-transport model (CTM) to quantify the effect that continental transport of such BB plumes has on the EA region. BB emissions from southern Africa were found to exert a significant influence over the TAO and EA between 10 ◦ S–20 N. The maximum concentrations in CO and O3 occur between 0–5 ◦ S near the position of the African Easterly Jet – South as placed by the European Centre for Medium range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) meteorological analysis data. By comparing co-located model output with in-situ measurements we show that the CTM fails to capture the tropospheric profile of CO in southern Africa near the main source region of the BB emissions, as well as the “extreme” concentrations of both CO and O 3 seen between 600–700 hPa over EA around 6 ◦ N. For more northerly locations the model exhibits high background concentrations in both CO and O3 related to BB emissions from southern Africa. By altering both the temporal resolution and the vertical distribution of BB emissions in the model we show that Correspondence to: J. E. Williams (williams@knmi.nl) changes in temporal resolution have the largest influence on the transport of trace gases near the source regions, EA, and in the outflow towards the west of Central Africa. Using a set of trajectory calculations we show that the performance of the CTM is heavily constrained by the ECMWF meteorological fields used to drive the CTM, which transport biomass burning plumes from southern Africa into the lower troposphere of the TAO rather than up towards the middle troposphere at 650 hPa. Similar trajectory simulations repeated using an updated meteorological dataset, which assimilates additional measurement data taken around EA, show markedly different origins for pollution events and highlight the current limitations in modelling this tropical region.

Maximizing Degrees of Freedom in MAX-DOAS Retrievals of BrO from Remote Tropical Marine Mountaintops

We are developing sensitive atmospheric vertical profile retrieval capabilities from MAX-DOAS sensors on tropical island mountaintops. Particularly, we target BrO which has significant impacts on the lifetime of greenhouse gases such as O3 and CH4.