Modeling of carbonaceous particles emitted by boreal and temperate wildfires at northern latitudes

For the first time, a spatial and monthly inventory has been constructed fo r carbonaceous particles emitted by boreal and temperate wildfires in fores ts, shrublands, and grasslands, with burned area data statistics, fuel load maps, fire characteristics, and particle emission factors. The time period considered is 1960-1997,and an important year-to-year variability was obse rved. On average, boreal and temperate vegetation fires represent 4% of glo bal biomass burning, but during extreme years, their contribution may reach 12%, producing 9% and 20% of black carbon (BC) and particulate organic mat ter (POM), respectively, emitted by worldwide fires. The North American com ponent of the boreal forest fires (Canada and Alaska) represents 4 to 122 G g C yr-l of BC and 0.07 to 2.4 Tg yr-l of POM emitted, whereas the Eurasiat ic component (Russia and northern Mongolia) may vary in the 16 to 474 Gg C yr-l range for BC and between 0.3 and 9.4 Tg yr-l for POM, with however gre at uncertainty. Temperate forests in conterminous United States and Europe have a much lower contribution with an average of 11 Gg C yr-l of BC and 0. 2 Tg yr-l of POM. Grassland fires in Mongolia represent significant BC and POM sources which may reach 62 Gg C and 0.4 Tg, respectively, Finally, an a nnual average of BC emissions for shrubland fires in both the Mediterranean region and California is 20 Gg C yr-l, with average POM emissions of 0.1 T g yr-l, These source maps obtained with a high spatial resolution (lox lo) can now be added to previous ones developed for other global carbonaceous a erosol sources (fossil fuel combustion, tropical biomass bunting, agricultu ral and domestic fires) in order to provide global maps of particulate carb on emissions. Taking into account particle injection height in relation wit h each type of fire, our source map is a useful tool for studying the atmos pheric transport and the impact of carbonaceous aerosols in three-dimension al transport and climate models.