Climatology

Validating the BlueSky Smoke Prediction System Using Observations

Fossil fuel consumption in the San Francisco Bay area and the San Joaquin Valley, as well as various agricultural activities in the San Joaquin Valley, contributes to poor air quality downwind of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains. Approximately 40% of the southern Sierra Nevada is federally managed lands that include Yosemite, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, Sierra and Sequoia National Forest and Sequoia National Monument. In 2003, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park recorded 72 days of exceedances of the 8-hour health standard for air pollutants. Because wildland fires produce precursors of ozone and particulate matter formation, their contribution to poor air quality in the southern Sierra Nevada is of a great scientific and management importance.

The climate group at the Michigan State University is participating in a joint research effort aimed at developing tools for estimating the contributions of wildland and prescribed fires to air quality in the southern Sierra Nevada. The project is sponsored by the USDA Forest Service under the Joint Fire Science Plan and includes participants from the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Station, National Park Service, EPA Region-5, Michigan State University, University of California in Merced, and the Desert Research Institute. The objectives of this research venture are to:

• Develop and implement mobile monitoring systems to measure ground level pollutant production from multiple fires.
• Implement the BlueSky dynamic modeling system for the southern Sierra Nevada using local topography, weather conditions and fire history.
• Develop a statistical model to evaluate the BlueSky model as a forecasting tool for particulate matter from fires and to estimate the precision of its outcome.
• Develop a statistical model to forecast (with specified precisions) next day or next week prescribed fire effects on regional air pollution (ozone and particulate matter).

The contribution of MSU’s climate group is to lead the evaluation of the performance of the BlueSky dispersion modeling system in predicting transport and dispersion of smoke from wildland and prescribed fires in the Sierra Nevada and assist in the development of statistical models for forecasting particulate matter concentrations resulting from fires.