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Estimating spatiotemporal trends in wildfire smoke concentrations in the western United States

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dc.contributor.authorO'Dell, Katelyn, author
dc.contributor.authorPierce, Jeffrey R., advisor
dc.contributor.authorFischer, Emily V., advisor
dc.contributor.authorFord, Bonne, committee member
dc.contributor.authorMagzamen, Sheryl, committee member
dc.date.accessioned2019-01-07T17:19:36Z
dc.date.available2019-01-07T17:19:36Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractThe United States (US) has seen significant improvements in seasonal air quality over the past several decades. However, particulate air quality in summer over the majority of the western US has seen little improvement in recent decades. Particulate matter with diameters < 2.5 microns (PM2.5) is a large component of ambient air quality that is associated with negative health effects and visibility degradation. Wildfires are a major summer source of PM2.5 in the western US. While anthropogenic-related sources of PM2.5 have decreased across the US, wildfires have increased in both frequency and burn area since the 1980s. It is currently uncertain how this increase in wildfires has impacted seasonal air quality trends and how the health effects of wildfire-emitted PM2.5 may differ from anthropogenic-sourced PM2.5. We do not directly address the latter uncertainty, but rather focus on improving smoke-exposure estimates, which are a critical, yet challenging, component to understanding the health effects of wildfire-emitted PM2.5. In this thesis, we use a combination of satellite estimates, surface observations, and chemical transport models to distinguish wildfire smoke PM2.5 from non-wildfire-smoke PM2.5 during the summer in the US. We update the record of seasonal trends in PM2.5 observed at surface monitors and provide the first estimates of trends in wildfire smoke-specific PM2.5. We find continued decreases in total-PM2.5 in most seasons and regions of the US. In the summer in heavily fire-impacted regions of the western US, we find non-decreasing total-PM2.5 while wildfire smoke-specific PM2.5 has increased and non-wildfire-smoke PM2.5 has decreased. We test the application of blended smoke exposure models, which use multiple data sources as input variables (e.g. satellite-derived aerosol optical depth, chemical transport models, etc.), across the full western US. We incorporate a novel dataset into the model, Facebook posts, which have been shown to correlate well with surface PM2.5 concentrations during the western US wildfire season. We find the blended smoke exposure model performs well across the western US (R2 = 0.66). However, the Facebook dataset is well correlated with interpolated surface monitors (another input variable) and thus does not significantly improve blended smoke-exposure estimates in the western US.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediummasters theses
dc.identifierODell_colostate_0053N_15219.pdf
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10217/193183
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartof2000-2019
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.titleEstimating spatiotemporal trends in wildfire smoke concentrations in the western United States
dc.typeText
dcterms.rights.dplaThis Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights (https://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/). You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
thesis.degree.disciplineAtmospheric Science
thesis.degree.grantorColorado State University
thesis.degree.levelMasters
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science (M.S.)

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