ACES at Fire Lab

The USDA Forest Service Fire Sciences Laboratory in Missoula, Montana is a unique facility where biomass burning emissions can be studied in a controlled environment.ÌýÌýFuels characteristic of biomass burning in different regions, such as western U.S. forests, grasslands or agricultural fuels, are ignited underneath a large stack equipped with sampling ports for chemical instrumentation.ÌýÌý

In 2016, NOAA led a large-scale study with an extensive instrumentation suite at this laboratory to produce arguably the most detailed investigation of biomass burning emissions to date.ÌýÌýOur group fielded the Airborne Cavity Enhanced Spectrometer (ACES) to measure emission factors for glyoxal and methylglyoxal, together with NO2and HONO.

Selected Papers

Zarzana, K.J., V. Selimovic, A.R. Koss, K. Sekimoto, M.M. Coggon, B. Yuan, W.P. Dubé, R.J. Yokelson, C. Warneke, J.A. de Gouw, J.M. Roberts, and S.S. Brown, Primary emissions of glyoxal and methylglyoxal from laboratory measurements of open biomass burning. Atmos. Chem. Phys., 2018. 18(20): p. 15451-15470.Ìý