Development of wildland fire particulate smoke marker to organic carbon emission ratios for the conterminous United States

Biomass burning is a significant source of aerosols that impact the global radiation budget, human health, and visibility. Molecular marker – chemical mass balance models are frequently employed to estimate the contribution of biomass burning smoke to pollution at receptor sites. These models require information about emissions of smoke tracer compounds to determine the smoke apportionment. This study provides new information about smoke marker emissions by combining laboratory measurements of the chemical composition of smoke with a fuelbed model to create spatially variable maps of smoke markers for the conterminous United States. The analysis incorporates novel measurements of anhydrosugars and water-soluble potassium collected from burning different wildland fuels during the Fire Lab at Missoula Experiment (FLAME). Several patterns emerged from the analyses of these measurements, particularly that different biomass tissue types (e.g., leaves, needles, branches and grasses) produced significantly different smoke marker to organic carbon emission ratios. Smoke marker to carbon emission ratios of biomass tissue types were coupled with the Fuel Characteristic Classification System fuelbed model and published combustion efficiencies to calculate 113 fuelbed smoke marker to carbon ratios. These fuelbed ratios were then mapped across the conterminous United States at 1 km resolution to understand the spatial variability of anhydrosugars and water-soluble potassium.