OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF THE ATMOSPHERIC AEROSOL DURING FOREST FIRES OF 2002 IN THE MOSCOW REGION

N. N. Ulyumdzhieva, N. E. Chubarova, and B. Holben

Data from the CIMEL sun photometer, operating in Moscow as part of the AERONET program, and HAZEMETER sun photometer measurements at the Zvenigorod research station of Moscow State University are used to analyze optical properties of aerosols during forest fires in the Moscow region in July—September 2002. The changes in aerosol loading in Moscow and Zvenigorod were consistent, demonstrating the propagation of a smoke aerosol “cloud” over a large area, and were in agreement with numbers of fires and with flammability indices in the Moscow region. The aerosol optical thickness during a fire period is shown to reach extremely large values (up to 2.94). The probability of cases with τ500 > 0.8, which actually do not occur under typical Moscow conditions, is about 24%. Relatively large values of the single-scattering albedo (ω0,673 = 0.92—0.95) indicate that the smoke from fires far more scattering than absorbing particles. The optical properties of the smoke aerosol in Moscow agree with those measured at other AERONET stations, where the dominant emission source is smoldering from wood fuels rather than active burning.

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