Observation of Wildfire Smoke Transport and PBL Variation During Summer 2018 Listos Campaign in New York City

Abstract

Air pollution associated with wildfire smoke transport and heat wave in summer pose serious public health concerns in the populated New York City (NYC) area. In this study, we present a synergistic lidar, ceilometer and in-situ observation for wildfire smoke transport and planetary-boundary-layer (PBL) variation in the NYC urban and coastal area during the summer 2018 Long Island Sound Tropospheric Ozone (O3) Study (LISTOS). A dense smoke plume and mixing into PBL on August 15-17, 2018 was analyzed while the coincident enhancement of PM2.5, CO and O3 exceedance of NAAQS was demonstrated from both the observation and model. In addition, we show the temporal-spatial variation and difference of the PBL-height (PBLH) in the NYC urban and its coastal vicinity. We further evaluate the NAM-CMAQ model forecast of O3, PM2.5 and PBLH with the ground observations.