Quantifying Smoke from Sugarcane Burning in Florida during the 2022-2023 Season

Western Palm Beach County, Florida is routinely impacted by agricultural field burning of sugarcane, which is burned annually to ease the harvesting process. Smoke from agricultural fires is a large source of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), which degrades air quality. Air pollution disproportionately affects low income and minoritized groups in the United States. Western Palm Beach County is a rural region, with a large population of low income and historically underrepresented groups. The air quality in Western Palm Beach County is under monitored, with only one regulatory monitor in the area. We deployed 31 low-cost PurpleAir sensors with residents in southeastern Florida to measure PM_2.5 concentrations during the 2022 - 2023 burning season. Our campaign (September 2022 - June 2023) encompassed the entirety of the burning season. We leveraged satellite observations (i.e., NOAA Hazard Mapping System) to separate transported smoke from smoke from fires in Florida and found that PM_2.5 concentrations increase by 3.2 ug m^-3 on local smoke impacted days versus smoke-free days throughout Palm Beach County. We will discuss spatial and temporal variability of PM_2.5 in southeastern Florida and provide insights on how smoke impacts air quality concentrations in different communities.