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Articles from the Free Tropo Atmos. Chem. Phys., 20, 5373–5390, 2020 https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-20-5373-2020 © Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Downward cloud venting of the central African biomass burning plume during the West Africa summer monsoon Alima Dajuma1,3, Kehinde O. Ogunjobi1,4, Heike Vogel2, Peter Knippertz2, Siélé Silué5, Evelyne Touré N’Datchoh3, Véronique Yoboué3, and Bernhard Vogel2 1Department of Meteorology and Climate Sciences, West African Science Service Centre on Climate Change and Adapted Land Use (WASCAL), Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, Nigeria 2Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany 3University Félix Houphouët Boigny, Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire 4Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Ondo State, Nigeria 5Université Peleforo Gon Coulibaly, Korhogo, Côte d’Ivoire Correspondence: Alima Dajuma ([email protected]) Received: 29 June 2019 – Discussion started: 9 August 2019 Revised: 3 April 2020 – Accepted: 4 April 2020 – Published: 7 May 2020 Abstract. Between June and September large amounts of clouds and rainfall over the Gulf of Guinea. Using the CO biomass burning aerosol are released into the atmosphere dispersion as an indicator for the biomass burning plume, we from agricultural fires in central and southern Africa. Re- identify individual mixing events south of the coast of Côte cent studies have suggested that this plume is carried west- d’Ivoire due to midlevel convective clouds injecting parts of ward over the Atlantic Ocean at altitudes between 2 and the biomass burning plume into the PBL. Idealized tracer ex- 4 km and then northward with the monsoon flow at low lev- periments suggest that around 15 % of the CO mass from els to increase the atmospheric aerosol load over coastal the 2–4 km layer is mixed below 1 km within 2 d over the cities in southern West Africa (SWA), thereby exacerbat- Gulf of Guinea and that the magnitude of the cloud venting is ing air pollution problems. However, the processes by which modulated by the underlying sea surface temperatures. There these fire emissions are transported into the planetary bound- is even stronger vertical mixing when the biomass burning ary layer (PBL) are still unclear. One potential factor is the plume reaches land due to daytime heating and a deeper large-scale subsidence related to the southern branch of the PBL. In that case, the long-range-transported biomass burn- monsoon Hadley cell over the tropical Atlantic. Here we ing plume is mixed with local anthropogenic emissions. Fu- use convection-permitting model simulations with COSMO- ture work should provide more robust statistics on the down- ART to investigate for the first time the contribution of down- ward cloud venting effect over the Gulf of Guinea and in- ward mixing induced by clouds, a process we refer to as clude aspects of aerosol deposition. downward cloud venting in contrast to the more common process of upward transport from a polluted PBL. Based on a monthly climatology, model simulations compare sat- isfactory with wind fields from reanalysis data, cloud obser- 1 Introduction vations, and satellite-retrieved carbon monoxide (CO) mix- ing ratio. For a case study on 2 July 2016, modelled clouds The interest in air pollution over southern West Africa (SWA) and rainfall show overall good agreement with Spinning En- has grown substantially in recent years (Knippertz et al., hanced Visible and InfraRed Imager (SEVIRI) cloud prod- 2015). Population growth, urbanization, and industrializa- ucts and Global Precipitation Measurement Integrated Multi- tion have led to increasing local emissions from various satellitE Retrievals (GPM-IMERG) rainfall estimates. How- sources in addition to natural ones. For instance, coastal ever, there is a tendency for the model to produce too much city development in SWA is leading to more traffic and fuel consumption (Doumbia et al., 2018). Anthropogenic emis- Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 5374 A. Dajuma et al.: Downward cloud venting over West Africa sions are expected to continue increasing if no regulations such as Lagos and Abidjan by approximately 150 µg m−3 for −3 are implemented (Liousse et al., 2014). Domestic fires, traf- carbon monoxide (CO), 10–20 µg m for ozone (O3), and fic, and waste burning are the most important sources of 5 µg m−3 for particulate matter with diameters smaller than pollution in West Africa (Marais and Wiedinmyer, 2016; 2.5 µm (PM2:5). Bahino et al., 2018; Djossou et al., 2018). In the framework An important and open question is the mechanism by of the Dynamics-Aerosol-Chemistry-Cloud Interactions in which the biomass burning aerosols from central Africa get West Africa (DACCIWA; Knippertz et al., 2015a) field cam- from the layer of midlevel easterlies into the PBL. Das et paign in SWA during June–July 2016 (Flamant et al., 2018b), al. (2017) reported that global aerosol models tend to simu- measurements of the French Service des Avions Français In- late a quick descent to lower levels just off the western coast strumentés pour la Recherche en Environnement (SAFIRE) of Africa, while Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polar- ATR-42 aircraft showed fairly high background concentra- ization (CALIOP) observations suggest that smoke plumes tions (i.e., outside of urban plumes) with PM1 mass con- continue their horizontal transport at elevated levels above centrations dominated by secondary organic compounds that the marine boundary layer. The strength and speed of sub- contribute 53 % to the total aerosol mass (Brito et al., 2018). sidence vary amongst models and subregions. The hypoth- For the urban pollution plumes of Abidjan, Accra, and Lomé, esis we investigate in this paper is that clouds play a con- they found a doubling of PM1 mass concentrations. Air pol- siderable role in the downward mixing of biomass burning lution is a main concern for human health leading to respi- aerosol from the elevated plume. Most previous studies have ratory and other diseases (Lelieveld et al., 2015), but it may focused on cloud-induced upward transport of aerosols and also affect local meteorology. For instance, using model sen- chemical species from close to their sources in the PBL to sitivity experiments, Deetz et al. (2018) showed that increas- the free troposphere (e.g., Dickerson et al., 1987; Ching et ing aerosol loadings can lead to a reduced inland penetration al., 1988; Cotton et al., 1995). Using two-dimensional ide- of the Gulf of Guinea maritime inflow (Adler et al., 2019) alized simulations, Flossmann and Wobrock (1996) calcu- and a weakening of the nocturnal low-level jet over SWA. lated the mass transport of trace gases across cloud bound- During the summer West African monsoon (WAM), the aries and from the marine boundary layer into the free tropo- atmosphere over SWA is characterized by a mixture of pol- sphere. The atmospheric condition was a well-mixed bound- lutants from different sources as highlighted by Knippertz et ary layer up to about 500 m and above a moist layer of al. (2017). In addition to the local pollution, long-range trans- about 2.2 km capped by a very dry stable layer. They found port of dust from the Sahel and the Sahara as well as biomass that 60 % of the mass of an inert tracer is exported due burning aerosol from central and southern Africa affects the to convective clouds. The same paper also examines the atmospheric composition. Mineral dust has been shown to transport of SO2 including chemical reactions showing that affect radiation, precipitation, and many WAM features (e.g., only a small fraction is dissolved and reacts in the aqueous Konare et al., 2008; Solmon et al., 2008; Stanelle et al., 2010; phase, while substantial amounts of SO2 are redistributed Raji et al., 2017; N’Datchoh et al., 2018). During this pe- by clouds (see also Kreidenweis et al., 1997). Using a 1-D riod, biomass burning is widespread in central and southern entraining–detraining plume model with ice microphysics, Africa, when plumes are carried westward by a jet between Mari et al. (2000) studied the transport of CO (inert tracer), 2 and 4 km (Barbosa et al., 1999; Mari et al., 2008), while CH3COOH, CH2O, H2O2, and HNO3, and they compared in West Africa activity peaks during the dry season from Oc- the results with observations from the Trace and Atmospheric tober to March (N’Datchoh et al., 2015). Biomass burning Chemistry Near the Equator-Atlantic (TRACE-A) campaign. is an important source of aerosols and trace gases, with an Convective enhancement factors at 7–12 km altitude, repre- estimated combined emission of several thousand teragrams senting the ratios of post convective to preconvective mix- per annum (Tg a−1) for tropical areas (Barbosa et al., 1999; ing ratios, were calculated for both observed and simulated van der Werf et al., 2003; Ito and Penner, 2004). For instance cases. Observed (simulated) values were 2.4 (1.9) for CO, 11 the estimated carbon emissions from both tropical fires and (9.5) for CH3COOH, 2.9 (3.1) for CH2O, 1.9 (1.2) for H2O2, −1 fuel wood use was 2.6 Pg C a over the period 1998–2001 and 0.8 (0.4) for HNO3. Pickering et al. (1996) showed an (van der Werf et al., 2003). Hao and Liu (1994) estimated upward transport of CO , NOx, and hydrocarbon mixing ra- that almost half of tropical biomass burning emissions come tios by convective clouds during the Brazilian phase of the from Africa, with savanna fires contributing up to 30 % to TRACE-A experiment. Moreover, Yin et al. (2001) simulated the global total and 64 % to the African total.
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