Quantifying CO emissions from boreal wildfires by assimilating TROPOMI and TCCON observations

Abstract. We perform a global inverse modelling analysis to quantify biomass burning emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) from the extreme wildfires in Canada between May and September 2023. Using the GEOS-Chem model, we assimilated observations at 3 d temporal and 2° × 2.5° horizontal resolution from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) separately and then jointly with Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) measurements. We also evaluated prior emissions from the Quick Fire Emissions Dataset (QFED), Blended Global Biomass Burning Emissions Product eXtended (GBBEPx), Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS), and Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System (CFFEPS). The assimilation of TROPOMI-only measurements estimated posterior North America emissions for QFED, GBBEPx, GFAS, and CFFEPS of 110.4 ± 20, 112.8 ± 20, 127.2 ± 17, and 125.6 ± 18 Tg CO compared to prior estimates of 37.1, 42.7, 91.0, and 90.2 Tg CO, respectively. The joint assimilation of TROPOMI+TCCON reduced the posterior 1σ uncertainty on the North American emission estimates by up to about 30 %, while showing only a modest impact (<5 %) on the mean estimate of the inferred emissions. An evaluation against independent measurements reveals that adding TCCON data increases the correlations and slightly lowers the biases and standard deviations. Additionally, including an experimental TCCON product at East Trout Lake with higher surface sensitivity, we find better agreement of the assimilation results with nearby in situ tall tower and aircraft measurements. This highlights the potential importance of vertical sensitivity in these experimental data for constraining local surface emissions. Our results demonstrate the complementarity of the greater temporal coverage provided by TCCON with the spatial coverage of TROPOMI when these data are jointly assimilated.

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Journal
Atmospheric chemistry and physics
Published
2025-11-13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-25-15527-2025
Primary Topic
Fire effects on ecosystems
Type
article
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article

Quantifying CO emissions from boreal wildfires by assimilating TROPOMI and TCCON observations

Douglas E. J. Worthy, Damien Weidmann, Paolo Cristofanelli, Nicholas M. Deutscher et al.
Atmospheric chemistry and physics
Fire effects on ecosystems
article

Quantifying CO emissions from boreal wildfires by assimilating TROPOMI and TCCON observations

Douglas E. J. Worthy, Damien Weidmann, Paolo Cristofanelli, Nicholas M. Deutscher, Debra Wunch, Emmanuel Mahieu, Thomas R. Seitz, Jack Chen, Dylan B. A. Jones, David F. Pollard, Omaira García, Rigel Kivi, Casper Labuschagne, Sina Voshtani, Robin Stevens, Kathryn McKain, Senen Racki, Paul O. Wennberg, Isao Murata, Martin Steinbacher, Ralf Sussmann, Hirofumi Ohyama, Isamu Morino, Shobha Kondragunta, Drew C. Pendergrass, Andrea Cadena-Caicedo, Yao Té, Reza Mahdi, Maria Makarova, Nicholas Jones, E.A. Kozlova, Aihua Zhu, Frank Hase, Kerry Anderson
article en

Abstract

Abstract. We perform a global inverse modelling analysis to quantify biomass burning emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) from the extreme wildfires in Canada between May and September 2023. Using the GEOS-Chem model, we assimilated observations at 3 d temporal and 2° × 2.5° horizontal resolution from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) separately and then jointly with Total Carbon Column Observing Network (TCCON) measurements. We also evaluated prior emissions from the Quick Fire Emissions Dataset (QFED), Blended Global Biomass Burning Emissions Product eXtended (GBBEPx), Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS), and Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System (CFFEPS). The assimilation of TROPOMI-only measurements estimated posterior North America emissions for QFED, GBBEPx, GFAS, and CFFEPS of 110.4 ± 20, 112.8 ± 20, 127.2 ± 17, and 125.6 ± 18 Tg CO compared to prior estimates of 37.1, 42.7, 91.0, and 90.2 Tg CO, respectively. The joint assimilation of TROPOMI+TCCON reduced the posterior 1σ uncertainty on the North American emission estimates by up to about 30 %, while showing only a modest impact (<5 %) on the mean estimate of the inferred emissions. An evaluation against independent measurements reveals that adding TCCON data increases the correlations and slightly lowers the biases and standard deviations. Additionally, including an experimental TCCON product at East Trout Lake with higher surface sensitivity, we find better agreement of the assimilation results with nearby in situ tall tower and aircraft measurements. This highlights the potential importance of vertical sensitivity in these experimental data for constraining local surface emissions. Our results demonstrate the complementarity of the greater temporal coverage provided by TCCON with the spatial coverage of TROPOMI when these data are jointly assimilated.

Atmospheric chemistry and physicsVol. 25(21)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (DE), California Institute of Technology (US), Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (ES), Natural Resources Canada (CA), Finnish Meteorological Institute (FI), Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (GB), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR), Environment and Climate Change Canada (CA), Laidlaw College (NZ), Harvard University (US), University of Liège (BE), St Petersburg University (RU), University of Toronto (CA), National Institute for Environmental Studies (JP), Tohoku University (JP), University of Wollongong (AU), University of Exeter (GB), South African Weather Service (ZA), Sorbonne Université (FR), Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (IT), Universitas Bung Karno (ID), IM Systems (United States) (US), Molécule aux Nanos-objets : Réactivité, Interactions et Spectroscopies (FR), NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research (US), Université de Montréal (CA), Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (CH), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (MX)
Openalex Percentile: Top 68%
Fire effects on ecosystems
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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