Chemical composition of PM_2.5 in October 2017 Northern California wildfire plumes

Abstract

Abstract. Wildfires have become more common and intense in the western US over recent decades due to a combination of historical land management practices and warming climate. Emissions from large-scale fires now frequently affect populated regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area during the fall wildfire season, with documented impacts of the resulting particulate matter on human health. Health impacts of exposure to wildfire emissions depend on the chemical composition of particulate matter, but the molecular composition of the real biomass burning organic aerosol (BBOA) that reaches large population centers remains insufficiently characterized. We took PM2.5 (particles having aerodynamic diameters less than or equal to 2.5 µm) samples at the University of California, Berkeley campus (∼ 60 km downwind of the fires) during the October 2017 Northern California wildfires period and analyzed molecular composition of OA using a two-dimensional gas chromatography coupled with high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry (GC×GC HR-ToF-MS). Sugar-like compounds were the most abundant component of BBOA, followed by mono-carboxylic acids, aromatic compounds, other oxygenated compounds, and terpenoids. The vast majority of compounds detected in smoke have unknown health impacts. Regression models were trained to predict the saturation vapor pressure and averaged carbon oxidation state (OSc‾) of detected compounds. The compounds speciated have a wide volatility distribution and most of them are highly oxygenated. In addition, time series of primary BBOA tracers observed in Berkeley were found to be indicative of the types of plants in the ecosystems burned in Napa and Sonoma, and could be used to differentiate the regions from which the smoke must have originated. Commonly used secondary BBOA markers like 4-nitrocatechol were enhanced when plumes aged, but their very fast formation caused them to have similar temporal variation as primary BBOA tracers. Using hierarchical clustering analysis, we classified compounds into seven factors indicative of their sources and transformation processes, identifying a unique daytime secondary BBOA factor. Chemicals associated with this factor include multifunctional acids and oxygenated aromatic compounds. These compounds have high OSc‾, and they are also semi-volatile. We observed no net particle-phase organic carbon formation, which indicates an approximate balance between the mass of evaporated organic carbonaceous compounds and the addition of secondary organic carbonaceous compounds.