Session Announcement and Call for Abstracts
Wildland Fire Emissions in Chemical Transport Models:
Improving Input Resolution
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting
14-18 December 2009
San Francisco, California
Abstract Submission Deadline: Thursday, 3 September 2009
For further information, please contact:
Amber Jeanine Soja
Email: amber.j.soja [at] nasa.gov
Christine Wiedinmyer
Email: christin [at] ucar.edu
Organizers of Session A41, "Wildland Fire Emissions in Chemical
Transport Models: Improving Input Resolution," announce a call for
abstracts. The session will be convened at the American Geophysical
Union (AGU) Fall Meeting, 14-18 December 2009, in San Francisco,
California.
The growing influence of biomass burning emissions on air quality, human
health, and feedbacks to the climate system has become undeniable in
recent years. Recognized impacts include enhanced emissions of
greenhouse gases, changes in atmospheric chemistry, deposition of trace
gases and particles onto arctic surfaces, and altered patterns of
precipitation. Chemical Transport Models use a variety of methods to
include emissions from fires, and different applications and results can
vary significantly. Variability in emission estimates can result from
selection of area burned products, ecosystem types, fuel contained in
ecosystems, and the amount of fuel consumed, which is directly related
to weather and climate. Each of these can differ by an order of
magnitude, which can significantly influence the simulated radiation and
chemistry products produced.
From the ground up through the fire column, assumptions in fire behavior
(i.e., level of severity, energy release rate, flaming versus smoldering
combustion) and injection height can lead to a variety of emission
estimations. The focus of this session is on the distinct assumptions
that are made to estimate bottom-up fire emissions for use in regional
and global models.
Organizers hope to challenge the community to use currently available
data and resources to test fire emission assumptions in order to move
towards more closely approximating reality. Defining methodologies and
the unique contribution of the variety of model assumptions will be a
major goal of this session. Organizers are particularly interested in
the differences that result from the variety of assumptions and the
disparity in model simulations that stem from these distinctions,
because this is where the interesting science questions will be found.
The abstract submission deadline for this and all other sessions is
Thursday, 3 September 2009, at 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time. To submit
an abstract, you must enter the first author's current AGU member ID and
password at: http://agu-fm09.abstractcentral.com/.
For further information, please contact:
Amber Jeanine Soja
Email: amber.j.soja [at] nasa.gov
Christine Wiedinmyer
Email: christin [at] ucar.edu
Brian J. Stocks
Email: brianstocks [at] sympatico.ca