the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Technical Note: Identifying Biomass Burning Emissions During ASIA-AQ Using Greenhouse Gas Enhancement Ratios
Abstract. Biomass burning (BB) is a primary source of atmospheric chemistry reactants, aerosols, and greenhouse gases. Smoke plumes have air quality impacts local to the fire itself and regionally via long distance transport. Open burning of agriculture fields in Southeast Asia leads to frequent seasonal occurrences of regional BB-induced smoke haze and long-range transport of BB particles via the northeast monsoon. The Airborne and Satellite Investigation of Asian Air Quality (ASIA-AQ) campaign visited several areas including the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan during a time of agricultural burning. This campaign consisted of airborne measurements on the NASA DC-8 aircraft aimed to validate observations from South Korea's Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS) and to address local air quality challenges. We developed a method that used a combination of BB markers to identify ASIA-AQ DC-8 data influenced by BB and flag them. Specifically, we used rolling slope enhancement ratios of CO/CO2 and CH4/CO along with mixing ratios of CH3CN, HCN, and CO, and particle scattering coefficient measurements. The flag was triggered when a combination of these variables exceeded a flight specific threshold. We found varying levels of BB-influence in the areas studied, with data flagged for BB being <1 % for the Philippines and Korea, and <2 % for Taiwan, but 19 % for Thailand. Our method for flagging ASIA-AQ BB-affected data can be used to focus additional analyses of the ASIA-AQ campaign such as pairing with back-trajectories, satellite hotspot products, and microphysical aerosol characteristics.
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Status: final response (author comments only)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2602', Anonymous Referee #1, 09 Sep 2025
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-2602', Anonymous Referee #2, 09 Sep 2025
Jason Miech and co-authors present a well written manuscript describing an approach at tagging biomass burning air parcels. Their method builds on prior work using short term changes in gas phase species to identify significant biomass burning compositional influence. Both the method refinements and resultant application are important. I recommend acceptance for publication after addressing a minor issue.
In the discussion of Figures 5A and 5B in Section 3.2.1, it would be helpful to add a note indicating the relative number of Thailand low altitude BB-flagged points to both 5A and 5B because it is difficult for the reader to visually discern the difference.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-2602-RC2
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This paper utilizes airborne measurements to determine the presence of biomass burning in southeast asia. The detailed analysis of gas- and particulate-phase tracers provides a robust means to identify sources. They then analyze the location and sources of the plumes and the properties of the aerosol emitted. All told, this is a robust analysis and beneficial to the study of biomass burning and pollution in the region. A few major edits are needed however:
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