Science Objectives of BORTAS

The overarching goal of BORTAS is to investigate the connection between the composition and the distribution of biomass burning outflow, ozone production and loss within the outflow, and the resulting perturbation to oxidant chemistry in the troposphere.

We have five science objectives:

1. sample biomass burning outflow from boreal North America over the western boundary of the North Atlantic during summer 2010 using the FAAM146 aircraft;
2. describe observed chemistry within plumes by using the measurements to constrain the Master Chemical Mechanism (MCM), with particular attention to the NO_y and organic chemistry;
3. derive a reduced chemical mechanism suitable for a global Chemical Transport Model (CTM) that accurately describes chemistry within the plumes;
4. quantify the impact of boreal forest fires on oxidant chemistry over the temperate and subtropical Atlantic using a nested 3-D chemistry transport model, driven by a subset of MCM chemistry and by assimilated field measurements; and
5. detect, validate and quantify the impact of boreal biomass burning on global tropospheric composition using data from space-borne sensors.