What is it about?
Atmospheric brown carbon (BrC) from wildfires is a key component of light-absorbing carbon that significantly contributes to global radiative forcing, but its atmospheric evolution and lifetime remain poorly understood. In this study, scientists quantified the atmospheric lifetime of wildfire-emitted brown carbon (BrC), enabling a more accurate assessment of its impacts on radiative forcing and atmospheric photochemistry.
Featured Image
Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This study advances our understanding of the BrC evolution through an integrated analysis of laboratory studies and four aircraft campaigns spanning diverse spatial and temporal scales. The analysis is enabled by the development of a method to parametrize emission ratios, which are often unavailable for aged wildfire plumes.
Perspectives
This study not only quantifies the lifetime of brown carbon (BrC), but also develops a method to facilitate comparisons across measurements conducted at different times and locations, enabling the quantification of wildfire emissions on broader spatial and temporal scales and providing critical constraints for modeling BrC impacts on climate.
Jhao-Hong Chen
Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Atmospheric Evolution of Brown Carbon from Wildfires in North America, Environmental Science & Technology, August 2025, American Chemical Society (ACS),
DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5c09020.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
