Causes of Haze Assessment

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Causes of Haze Assessment
Presented at the RPO National Technical
Workgroup Meeting November 5, 2003

• Dave DuBois
• Desert Research Institute

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Acknowledgements

• Funding from WRAP and CENRAP
• WRAP Air Monitoring Reporting Forum Chair
• Marc Pitchford
• DRI Faculty
• Mark Green, Principal Investigator
• Jin Xu
• Dan Freeman
• Vic Etyemezian
• DRI students and hourly employees
• Aleksandra Nikolic
• Karl Graham
• Anthony Deleon
• Eric Peters

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COHA Status Report

• Review goals and objectives
• COHA approach
• Virtual report
• Aerosol descriptions
• Meteorological descriptions
• Emissions descriptions
• Trajectory analysis
• Episode analysis

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Goals Objectives

• Assess causes of haze for all study sites
• Systematic study of 128 Class I areas in WRAP and
  CENRAP, 8 tribal sites and 10 CENRAP protocol
  sites
• Encourage broad-based stakeholder participation
  throughout the assessment process
• Enhance the utility and accessibility of the
  results for
• SIP TIP development,
• Regional air quality model evaluation
  interpretation,
• Identification of monitoring gaps,
• Improved methodology for setting natural haze
  levels,
• Tracking effectiveness of emission control
  programs

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COHA Study Data

• Began analysis of 1997 to 2002 IMPROVE and
  protocol database
• Primarily using IMPROVE and protocol sites with
  full speciation data in the study region (118
  sites by December 2002)
• Using nationwide network of 158 sites (end of
  2002) to establish continental and regional
  setting

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COHA Approach
Determine causes of haze at WRAP and CENRAP Class
I areas, tribal and selected CENRAP IMPROVE
protocol sites
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COHA Approach

• Systematic studymany sites, many questions to
  answer
• Processing reports in batch mode to facilitate
  timely completion
• Give each site individual attention once batch
  processing is completed

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COHA Approach

• Virtual reportno paper report
• A virtual report designed as a tool to
• guide us in the causes of haze
• communicate results
• help users to interpret causes of haze
• Virtual report gives us the ability to mix text,
  graphics, animations and links to external web
  sites in addition to timely updates

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The Causes of Haze web site is online now in
a DRAFT, password protected form http//coha.dri.
edu Username dri-coha Password hazeyweb
Much of the web site is a shell ready to receive
data and causes of haze information that we
generate
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This interface is under construction and may
change
View reports by state, area, tribal area
or protocol site
View animations of IMPROVE measurements
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Aerosol Descriptive Analysis
Provides answers to the questions

• For the years 1997-2001, how many measurements
  are available for the site in each month of each
  year, and what are the contributions of the major
  aerosol components to light extinction in each
  month of each year?
• What is the overall average light extinction at
  the site, and what are the contributions of the
  major aerosol components to the light extinction?
• What are the light extinction contributions by
  the major aerosol components for best, worst and
  average days and how do they compare?
• What percentage of the sampling days are the
  worst days in each month how variable are the
  chemical components?

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Aerosol Descriptive Analysis
Aerosol descriptions available on web page now
BIBE1, Big Bend National Park, TX BOWA1,
Boundary Waters Canoe Area, MN DENA1, Denali
National Park, AK GRCA2 , Hance Camp at Grand
Canyon NP, AZ HAVO1, Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park, HI JARB1, Jarbidge Wilderness, NV MORA1,
Mount Rainier National Park, WA SAGO1, San
Gorgonio Wilderness, CA SAGU1, Saguaro National
Monument, AZ UPBU1, Upper Buffalo Wilderness, AR
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Aerosol Descriptive Analysis
Pages designed for users to copy and paste text
and figures into their own reports Example San
Gorgonio Wilderness Area, California Both charts
and text to describe the 20 best, worst and
middle 60 Printer friendly and black white
versions of pages
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Meteorological Emissions Descriptive Analysis

• Archived monitoring network locations, climate,
  emissions, wildfires, census, political,
  physical, and image databases
• Information from these databases are helping us
  build conceptual models and answer descriptive
  analysis questions by visualizing data (e.g. map
  emissions densities)
• Assist us in the general and detailed description
  of the meteorological setting of each site
• Over 120 GB of spatial data archived at DRI

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Descriptive Analysis Map Progress

• Standard maps to support descriptive analysis
  text
• Terrain (labels on rivers, lakes, major features,
  peaks)
• Nearby met/air quality networks
• Urban boundaries, roads, landmarks
• Landuse map
• Landsat image (qualitative landuse, with some
  features labeled)
• Emissions map (fires, WRAP point inventory, urban
  areas, roads)
• Specialized maps (as needed basis)
• 3D terrain map
• Meteorological flow map to illustrate transport

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Standard Analysis Map Progress
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Maps for web site Approx. percent completed
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Hawaii 0, Alaska 0
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Cucamonga Wilderness Area
Example 20 km terrain map
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Cucamonga Wilderness Area
Example 2 km terrain map
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Meteorological Description Update

• Describe meteorological influences by defining
  regions
• Hawaii and So. Calif. Coastal are posted on web
• Detailed meteorological descriptions
• San Gorgonio and Jarbidge are posted on web
• Terrain description
• Access database tool developed to assist
  descriptive text
• Identify nearby meteorological measurements for
  use in interpreting aerosol data

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Cucamonga Wilderness Area
Example 20 km met/air quality network map
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Trajectory Analysis Status

• Three years (2000-2001), three heights (10, 500,
  1500m), every three hours
• EDAS for continental sites and FNL for Hawaii and
  Alaska
• HYSPLIT v4.6 model calculations done for all
  sites
• Trajectory output being processed and stored in
  database
• Trajectory tool being developed to produce ASCII
  summary files and convert trajectories into
  shapefiles
• Generate summary maps

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Emissions Description Status

• Developing standard template for web site
• Creating maps of emissions surrounding each site
  at two scales 2 km and 20 km
• Include table of surrounding point sources ranked
  by distance and emission rate

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Cucamonga Wilderness Area
20 km emissions map
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Episode Analysis

• Use combination of backtrajectory, synoptic,
  mesoscale meteorological analysis, aerosol and
  emissions data to conceptually understand single
  site and regional or sub-regional episodes of
  high aerosol component concentrations
• Systematic survey of episodes from the 1997 to
  2002 IMPROVE database

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Episode Analysis

• Created animated maps of IMPROVE and protocol
  measurements for entire network
• Choose episodes base on sites classified with 20
  worst light extinction
• Noting duration, frequency, regional extent,
  season and components that contributed to light
  extinction
• Assemble case studies and classify into episode
  types
• Create database of these episodes
• Combine results of episode analysis with cluster
  analysis to develop conceptual models

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Hazagon Analysis

• The hazagon provides a way to visualize speciated
  extinction for those sites in the 20 worst
  category

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Wrap up

• Phase I analyses completed by summer 2004
• Phase II analyses completed by 2005
• Possibilities of adding other RPO's
• Continue to maintain and update the website
  information plus the need to repeat the
  assessment periodically (e.g. 5 year cycle).

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Example Episodes

• April 16, 2001 Asian Dust over Western US
• August 2001 wildfires
• October 16, 2001 Arizona dust
• September 3, 1997 Eastern sulfate transport to
  Colorado Plateau

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4/16/01 Asian Dust Episode
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GOES View of the Dust Streak Across North
America, April 17
GOES10 view of dust streak on the morning of
April 17
GOES8 view of dust streak on the evening of April
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Transport of the Asian dust to the United States
The common weather conditions are usually
associated with the upper low pressure trough /
cut-ff low and surface low pressure system (low
formed by a strong cyclonic vortex) over
northeast China and north Korea Kim et al.,
2002. Under this weather conditions, Asian dust
can move fast along the zonal wind distribution
due to the jet streak Kim et al., 2002.
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Large Area Regional Haze on April 16, 2001

• 45 of the 68 WRAP IMPROVE monitoring sites were
  in 20 worst case days of the year 2001. For the
  sites that were 20 worst case days, the average
  contribution of fine soil to PM2.5 is 60 (with
  a standard deviation of 13), and dusts (fine
  soil and coarse mass) contributed in average
  46 (S.D. 13) to the aerosol light extinction.
• The average contribution of fine soil to PM2.5 is
  54, and to aerosol light extinction is 41 for
  all WRAP sites on April 16, 2001.

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Asian Dust Signature

• Asian dust may cause haze in a large area and
  last several days depending on the regional and
  local weather conditions in the United States.
• Usually, dust elements dominate the aerosol light
  extinction in the whole western United States
  during the Asian dust episode. The dust cloud may
  also move to the Eastern U.S. and influence some
  of the eastern sites, although the influence is
  usually much smaller in both spatial scale and
  loading.
• Most of the Asian dust episodes happen in the
  spring during the Month of March to May.

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Asian Source Attribution Evidence

• The desert regions in Mongolia and China,
  especially Gobi desert in Northwest China, are
  important sources of mineral aerosols. Given
  suitable weather conditions, dust can be lifted
  from the dry surface of the Asian Gobi desert
  region and transported to the United States in
  about 7-10 days. Extremely high aerosol loadings
  dominated by dust components are observed in
  Northern China and Korea during the episode.

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Origin of the Asian Dust
Strong low pressure system sitting in northeast
Mongolia caused surface wind speeds to be as high
as 30 m/s
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The August 2001 Western US Wildfire Episode
Most of August experienced heavy OC in the west.
44 sites in the WRAP region experienced the worst
20 day on August 17.
3 sites had this day as worst Bext CABI1,
Cabinet Mountains, MT NOCA1, North Cascades,
WA PASA1, Pasayten, WA
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The August 2001 Western US Wildfire Episode
August 11-23
Fires started early in August and lasted all
month. 2001 was not a particularly bad fire year
in terms of number of acres burned
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Databases available

• IMPROVE data
• Text, photos and maps on fires from NIFC, USFS,
  newspapers
• Text on meteorology from NWS, NCDC
• Weather maps from CDC, NCEP, WXP
• MODIS satellite images from UWisc, USFS
• Coarse fire locations fron MODIS, AVHRR

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Large Fire Locations
Typical of late season fires, most of the fires
are in the northwest and northern Great Basin
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August 15 Terra MODIS at 1838 UTC shows
transport of regional smoke plumes
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August 17 Terra MODIS at 1838 UTCCan see
thick smoke in NW and coastal areas
The Moose Incident was one of the largest fires
of the 2001 season. This lightning caused fire
occurred August16th on the Flathead National
Forest. The Moose fire ultimately burned
approximately 71,000 acres before it was
controlled.
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Conditions
According to NIFC National Fire News the national
level of preparedness increased to the highest
point on the 16th, as more than one half million
acres are burning in 42 large fires across the
United States. Nearly 21,000 firefighters are
working on the fire lines. Record high
temperatures in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho may
increase large fire activity. Predicted strong
winds will challenge firefighters on the 17th.
Media reports on the 16th indicate federal troops
will join the 21,000 firefighters. Fire activity
as of mid-August was near to or slightly above
the 10-year average.
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Drought
http//lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2001
/wildfire/08-07Statewideprank_pg.gif
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Morning surface weather 17 August (1200 UTC)
Notice radar echos (see end of presentation)
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5 day backtrajectories from morning of 17 Aug
Possible Canadian influence on Montana sites
NM sites point toward regional fires in Northwest
and upper Great Basin
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Arizona Local (Regional) Dust Episode
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Arizona Regional Dust Episode
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Surface Weather Map Before the Sampling Day
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Surface Weather Map Midnight October 16, 2001
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Annual Percentile of Bext, OC, FS and CM on
10/16/2001
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Transport of the Dust
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Percentile of Bext, OC, FS and CM on 10/16/2001
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Case study for September 3, 1997-Eastern US
sulfate transport to Colorado Plateau
12 spatially coherent sites in TX, NM, AZ, CO 20
worst haze,with sulfate dominant
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Highest S for all 1997 at Arizona, New Mexico
sites and Mesa Verde, 94-99 percentile other sites
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2 days prior to event, flow was light from the
east to southeast upwind of sites. Haze reported
at many eastern US NWS stations
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Weak cold front passes- stronger flow accelerates
westward movement of hazy airmass? Flow in
response to high pressure system along Canadian
border
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Bandalier, Big Bend 315 hour backtrajectories
from noon local time Sep 3
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Tonto, Grand Canyon 315 hour backtrajectories
from noon local time Sep 3
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Mt. Zirkel, Great Sand Dunes, 315 hour
backtrajectories from noon local time Sep 3
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Conceptual model of event

• Highest S day for 1998 for Arizona and New Mexico
  sites long-range transport from eastern US
• Specific source areas in eastern US, unknown,
  could be large hazy blob and many source areas
  included from southeast to possibly Ohio River
  Valley
• Initial inspection of aerosol maps indicates rare
  to get this far west- but not unusual to reach
  Big Bend (from BRAVO study analyses)
• Movement of large early autumn high pressure west
  to east along Canadian border associated with
  this pattern and other cases of eastern US
  transport to Big Bend
• Additional analysis could look at airport
  visibility data, other aerosol data, additional
  cases (if found)

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