Date of Award
2022
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Atmospheric and Earth Science
Committee Chair
Udaysankar Nair
Committee Member
Sundar Christopher
Committee Member
Pawan Gupta
Subject(s)
Air--Pollution--Measurement, Wildfires, Smoke
Abstract
As vehicular and industrial impacts on air pollution continue to decrease over the continental United States (CONUS), smoke from wildland fires has become the major contributor to particulate matter pollution (PM2.5). With the frequency of wildland fires expected to increase, there is considerable interest in quantifying their impact on PM2.5 pollution. For the first time, this work estimates smoke impact on PM2.5 pollution over CONUS using direct observations of presence of smoke at the surface made by trained observers. These observations are combined with in situ observations of PM2.5 and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) smoke forecast fields to assess the impact at relevant administrative levels for the period of 2010-2021. The results indicate the western United States (US) had the greatest increase in surface PM2.5 when smoke was present at the surface with several urbanized areas also having significant impacts on surface pollution.
Recommended Citation
Shirey, Ashlyn Lee, "Geospatial analysis of wildland fire impact on surface air pollution utilizing data fusion" (2022). Theses. 371.
https://louis.uah.edu/uah-theses/371