The oxygen to carbon dioxide ratios observed in emissions from a wildfire in northern California

At Trinidad, California we observed elevated CO2 concentrations and concomitant lowered O2 levels coincident with forest fires 70 km distant (from 10/8/99 to 10/21/99). The precision of our O2 data, ±1 µmol O2/mol dry air, revealed the reduction of atmospheric oxygen resulting from the combustion of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2001-06, Vol.28 (12), p.2413-2416
Main Authors: Lueker, Timothy J., Keeling, Ralph F., Dubey, Manvendra K.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical composition and interactions. Ionic interactions and processes
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
External geophysics
Meteorology
wildfire
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Summary:At Trinidad, California we observed elevated CO2 concentrations and concomitant lowered O2 levels coincident with forest fires 70 km distant (from 10/8/99 to 10/21/99). The precision of our O2 data, ±1 µmol O2/mol dry air, revealed the reduction of atmospheric oxygen resulting from the combustion of biomass, and the stoichiometric ratios (−O2/CO2) of the wildfire emissions. Estimates of daily −O2/CO2 ratios were obtained by regression of CO2 against corresponding O2 data (R² 0.86 to 0.96). Daily −O2/CO2 ratios changed from 1.15 to 1.41 on a particularly smoky day that coincided with elevated levels of CH4 and increased CH4/CO2 ratios. The change to a higher ratio during smoky conditions illustrates the association between changing emissions and −O2/CO2 ratios, possibly due to changing wildfire dynamics.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2000GL011860