Participation in the field campaign SAMBBA, data analysis and modeling

Abstract

The fires that occur annually in various biomes of South America emit to the atmosphere a huge amount of aerosols and trace gases. The presence of aerosols in the atmosphere alters the radiation balance, cloud microphysical properties, water cycle and air quality in the troubled regions. The trace gases either primary or secondary pollutants also generate significant damage to the environment. Thus, characterization and understanding of how these disorders arise are needed for many actions. During the month of September 2012 there will be an intensive campaign of atmospheric measurements in the Amazon focusing characteristics of fires and its emissions. This campaign will involve various scientific institutions (UK-Met-Office, INPE, USP, University of Manchester and others) and will have the FAMM UK aircraft instrumented with state-of-the-art equipment for various types of measurements. The aircraft will be based in Porto Velho (RO) and will perform about 80 hours of sampling flights across the Amazon plume surveying fresh emitted and aged smoke plumes as well as the surrounding environment. Measurements of concentrations of aerosols and the most relevant trace gases, and microphysics and radiation measurements will be performed. This project aims obtaining financial support to enable the effective participation of researchers and students of INPE involved in the experiment, both in the aspect of paying traveling and staying during the field campaign and subsequent analysis of the collected data, improvement of the atmospheric chemistry models used at INPE and scientific publications. (AU)