Investigation of Locally Generated and Long-Range Smoke Transport Using Aerosol Measurements and Back Trajectory Analysis in the Southern Great Plains, USA (2011-2023)

Wildfires and controlled burns are significant agents of ecological disturbance and landscape management across the globe. With an increasing number and intensity of wildfires each year, exposure to smoke is a growing health concern. These fires produce large loadings of aerosols, which travel thousands of miles upstream or downwind. While many field campaigns have been developed to study smoke physical and chemical properties in near proximity to the smoke plumes, investigating the effect on aerosol physical properties due to long-range transport aging has been less examined. This investigation aims to improve the understanding of transport and dispersion within and above the Southern Great Plains (SGP) planetary boundary layer. Fire sources from Kansas and Oklahoma are considered local smoke, while smoke from Canada, Mexico, and the western U.S. to the SGP is considered long-range transport. This research uses Lidar backscattering signals from the SGP ARM Site, Fire Radiative Power, and Aerosol Optical Depth from NASA satellite retrieval datasets in combination with HYSPLIT back trajectories to study the time for the smoke to transport from the source to the SGP and the impact on the evolution of aerosol loadings and boundary layer depth. The study covers the period from 2011 to 2023, considering significant fire events in California (e.g., Rim, King, Carr, Monterrey, Camp, and Loyalton fires) and Montana (Elmo and Ash Creek fires). Preliminary results show differences in aerosol vertical distribution between locally generated smoke and aged smoke delivered by long-range transport.