Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics

The special issue will publish results from the BORTAS aircraft campaign in summer 2011 and related ground-based and space-borne measurement studies in 2010 and 2011. The overarching goal of BORTAS is to investigate the connection between the composition and the distribution of boreal biomass burning outflow, ozone production and loss within the outflow, and the resulting perturbation to oxidant chemistry in the troposphere. In July 2011, the FAAM146 research aircraft was used to sample the outflow from boreal fires over the Western boundary of the North Atlantic. These aircraft-based measurements were complemented by satellite data and a range of ground-based measurements.

The data obtained in the BORTAS campaign are used to

• describe observed chemistry within plumes, with particular attention to the NOy and organic chemistry;
• derive a reduced chemical mechanism from the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM), informed by the measurements, suitable for use in a global chemical transport model to reproduce observed chemistry within the plumes;
• quantify the impact of boreal forest fires on oxidant chemistry over the temperate and subtropical Atlantic using a nested 3-D chemistry transport model, driven by assimilated field measurements and the reduced chemical mechanism; and
• detect, validate and quantify the impact of boreal biomass burning on global tropospheric composition using data from space-borne sensors.