Dense Wildfire Smoke Transport and Impacts on Air Quality in New York City Area in Summer 2023

Dense wildfire smoke plumes originated from Canada were observed from the integrated lidar remote sensing and ground in-situ samplers in New York City (NYC) area in summer 2023. The range-resolved smoke plume distribution, transport and mixing in the planetary boundary layer (PBL) were identified from the co-located aerosol and ozone lidar, ceilometers and wind lidar measurements. This study will present two unprecedented episodes on June 6-8 (Event-1) and June 29-July 1 (Event-2) when the transported wildfire smoke resulted in the ground hourly PM2.5 attaining 100-400 µg/m³ in NYC area. The goals of this study is to characterize the impacts of transported smoke plumes on ground air quality and urban PBL evolution. Both events indicate the fine-mode particle dominated in the Particulate Matter (PM) concentration in term of the size-resolved mass and number density measurements. For the Event-1, ozone concentrations in the PBL were relatively moderate but for the Event-2 (June 29), high ozone concentrations at ground level and in the PBL were observed that exceed national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) at regional sites under relatively warmer (T=83°F) and humid weather condition. For these two events, different correlation and regression relationship between ground PM2.5 and CO are indicated. In addition, the statistical analysis of the lidar observed aloft plumes at CCNY indicate coincidently high concentrations of aerosol and ozone in summer 2023. Further analysis of the smoke impacts on regional-scale air quality are ongoing.