Novel satellite and modelling studies to assess wildfire emission impacts on air quality and climate

Start date: 1 October 2023
End date: 30 September 2027
Value: £50,000
Partners and collaborators: Met Office, University of Leicester and University of Edinburgh
Primary investigator: Dr Richard Pope
Postgraduate students: Maria Paula Velásquez García

Large-scale wildfires/biomass burning emitted substantial quantities of air pollutants (e.g. nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO) and aerosols), which can have detrimental impacts on regional air quality and human health. This is especially true in the tropical rainforests where biomass burning is used to clear forested areas for agriculture.

In this work, novel satellite datasets from the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO) of atmospheric composition are combined with simulations from the state-of-the-art UK Earth System Model (UKESM) to investigate the drivers of spatiotemporal changes in South American wildfires/biomass burning and its impacts on regional/global air quality and climate.