ABSTRACT
Biomass burning is an important source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and aerosols including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxide (NOx), ammonia (NH4), and volatile organic compounds (Andreae and Merlet, 2001). Global annual areas burned for the years 1997 through 2011 vary from 301 to 377 Mha, with an average of 348 Mha (Giglio et al., 2013). Of the different regions, tropical Asia is considered a major source of biomass burning (Streets et al., 2003; Vadrevu and Justice, 2011). Important sources of biomass burning emissions in tropical Asia include deforestation (van Der Werf et al., 2008), slash-and-burn agriculture (Prasad et al., 2000; Langner et al., 2007), agricultural residue burning (Badarinath et al., 2009; Vadrevu et al., 2011; 2012; Cheewaphongphan and Garivait, 2013), management fires (Murdiyarso and Level, 2007), and peat land burning (Heil et al., 2007). Present estimates suggest that globally, wildfires contribute about 20% of the fossil fuel carbon emissions to the atmosphere and global fire emissions averaged over 1997–2009 amount to 2.0 Pg C year−1 (van der Werf et al., 2010). It is estimated that carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen dioxide (NOx) emissions from fires comprise approximately 30% and 15% of global total direct emissions, respectively (Jaeglé et al., 2005; Müller and Stavrakou, 2005; Arellano et al., 2006). Enhanced CO and NOx concentrations can impact tropospheric ozone 546formation and affect the oxidizing capacity of the atmosphere by regulating the hydroxide lifetime (Logan et al., 1981). Aerosols released from the biomass burning can be elevated by midlatitude wave cyclones and sometimes can travel long distances to possibly influence climate and weather patterns. Specific to climate impacts, Wang et al. (2014) have shown that Asian pollution invigorates winter cyclones over the northwest Pacific, increasing precipitation by 7% and net cloud radiative forcing by 1.0 W m−2 at the top of the atmosphere and by 1.7 W m−2 at the Earth’s surface. No single system can provide all the necessary data, and to address air quality and climate impacts of GHGs, several studies infer the need to integrate both top-down and bottom-up approaches including modeling (Martin et al., 2002).
