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Smoke aerosols dispersion and transport from the 2013 New South Wales (Australia) bushfires

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Abstract

Environmental monitoring and modelling, especially in the regional context, has seen significant progress with the widely usage of satellite measurement in conjunction with local meteorological and air quality monitoring to understand the atmospheric dispersion and transport of air pollutants. This paper studies the application of these data and modelling tools to understand the environment effects of a major bushfire period in the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, in 2013. The bushfires have caused high pollution episodes at many sites in the greater Sydney metropolitan areas. The potential long-range transport of aerosols produced by bushfires to other region and states has been seen by regulators as a major concern. Using data and images collected from satellites, in addition to the results obtained from different simulations carried out using HYSPLIT trajectory model and a regional meteorological model called Conformal Cubic Atmospheric Model (CCAM), we were able to identify at least 2 days on which the smoke aerosols from bush fires in NSW has been transported at high altitude to the northern state of Queensland and the Coral Sea. As a result, widespread high particle concentration in South East Queensland including the Brisbane area, as measured by nearly all the air quality monitoring stations in this region, occurred on the day when the smoke aerosols intruded to lower altitude as indicated by the CALIOP (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization) Lidar measurements on the CALIPSO (Cloud–Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation) satellite. The use of meteorological or air quality modelling to connect the ground-based measurements with satellite observations as shown in this study is useful to understand the pollutant transport due to bushfires and its impact on regional air quality.

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Acknowledgments

The provision of air quality data from the Queensland Department of Environment is gratefully acknowledged. Analyses and visualisations, where they are indicated in the paper, were produced with the Giovanni online data system, developed and maintained by the NASA GES DISC, and the CALIPSO satellite products from NASA Langley Research Center (http://www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov/products/lidar/browse_images/production/). We also acknowledge the NOAA Air Resources Laboratory (ARL) for the provision of the HYSPLIT transport and dispersion model and/or READY website (http://www.ready.noaa. gov) used in this publication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environment Quality, Atmospheric Science and Climate Change Research Group, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

    Hiep Nguyen Duc

  2. Faculty of Environment and Labour Safety, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam

    Hiep Nguyen Duc

  3. New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage, Sydney, Australia

    Lisa Tzu-Chi Chang & Ningbo Jiang

  4. CSIRO Energy Flagship, 11 Julius Avenue, North Ryde, NSW, 2113, Australia

    Merched Azzi

Authors
  1. Hiep Nguyen Duc
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  2. Lisa Tzu-Chi Chang
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  3. Merched Azzi
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  4. Ningbo Jiang
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Correspondence to Hiep Nguyen Duc.

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Duc, H.N., Chang, L.TC., Azzi, M. et al. Smoke aerosols dispersion and transport from the 2013 New South Wales (Australia) bushfires. Environ Monit Assess 190, 428 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-018-6810-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-018-6810-4

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