Evaluating the Atmospheric Impact of Wildfires
Résumé
The availability of more and more valuable surface and atmospheric observations, especially from satellites, and the advance of vegetation, general circulation and chemistry-transport modelling, allow quantitative evaluations and prediction of the impact of fires on both air quality and climate. These will represent both the transport of the emissions and the chemical and physical processes involved in the evolution of fire plumes. This chapter provides an overview of the methodology generally adopted for the construction of emission inventories necessary for impact evaluation, and gives a few examples of recent research and the future directions. It discusses the strong influence of meteorological and climatic conditions on the development and strength of fire events. These fires in turn impact meteorological conditions, mainly through the energy released and via their emissions of particulate matter into the atmosphere. These two effects are briefly summarized.