Age of smoke sampled by aircraft during FIREX-AQ: methods and critical evaluation

Abstract

Abstract. The age of smoke, meaning the time elapsed since it was produced in a fire, is an important parameter for interpreting measurements of evolving smoke composition. This study describes the smoke age estimates developed for large plumes sampled in the 2019 NASA-NOAA FIREX-AQ field experiment. Smoke ages are computed using two methods and applied to observations from two aircraft: the NASA DC-8 and a NOAA Twin Otter. The first method uses measurements of mean horizontal wind speed, as observed by the sampling aircraft, and distance to the fire to provide a single age estimate for each plume-crossing performed by the aircraft. While this "mean-wind method" uses accurate wind measurements, it can be systematically biased by assumptions that plume rise time is negligible and that winds are homogeneous horizontally and in time during the plume transport. Wind inhomogeneities due to terrain effects and day-to-night transition, among other factors, affected some plumes during FIREX-AQ. The mean-wind method therefore performs best for short-range transport over level terrain with steady winds. The second method relies on upwind air parcel trajectories and plume rise computed with multiple high-resolution meteorological datasets. This "trajectory-based method" quantifies age uncertainty from the meteorological ensemble, plume rise speed, wind speed errors, and fire location. The second method also resolves age differences from the center to edge of a transect. Still, it is susceptible to errors in the meteorological model. With careful comparison of the simulated trajectories to smoke transport observed from geostationary satellite imagery described here, we filter out many trajectory errors and improve the smoke age estimates. The two age methods are strongly correlated (R = 0.93) for the periods during FIREX-AQ when both ages are available. The mean-wind age is systematically 14 % younger than the trajectory-based age and the median absolute difference between them is 19 % (23 % for mean). The favorable agreement between the two age methods reflects that the mean-wind method was selectively applied to plumes with little wind variability. Trajectory-based ages are available for more of the FIREX-AQ smoke observations than the mean-wind ages. The median trajectory-based age uncertainty during FIREX-AQ is 24 % and the mean uncertainty is 37 %, due to a long-tailed distribution. The main source of age uncertainty is spread within the meteorological ensemble, followed by discrepancy between measured and modeled wind speed, then other factors like plume rise. The age uncertainty variable enables the user to identify periods with high or low confidence in the age estimate, thereby informing studies of smoke aging.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Earth system science data, 2026 · DOI ↗