Special Issue "Biomass Emissions"

Guest Editor
Dr. Charles Ichoku
Climate & Radiation Branch, Code 613.2, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
Website: http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/userpage/ichoku
E-Mail: charles.ichoku@nasa.gov

Dear Colleagues,

Our environment, air quality, health, weather, and climate are impacted in various ways by particulate and gaseous emissions emanating from different biomass transformation processes, ranging from natural occurrences such as biogenic emissions and lightning-induced forest fires, to human activities such as domestic cooking, biofuel production, biomass-based power generation, savanna fires, and other types of biomass burning used for agricultural, ecological-control, and related purposes. However, biogenic emissions and those from domestic cooking and biofuel production represent special topics in themselves, and will not be emphasized in this “Biomass Emissions” special issue, which will focus on direct emissions from open biomass burning. Such biomass burning events occur seasonally in different vegetated landscapes across the world, consuming large amounts of biomass, and emitting corresponding amounts of smoke plumes that comprise aerosols and trace gases, which include carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), non-methane hydrocarbons, and numerous other trace compounds. Accurate estimates of these emissions are required as model inputs to monitor, assess, and forecast smoke plume transport and impacts. Although much progress has been made in fire emissions estimation during the last couple of decades, there is still significant uncertainty. Given the current abundance of new and improved measurements from advanced satellite-borne, airborne, and ground-based instrumentation, as well as the synergy between these and sophisticated computer models, there are greater opportunities to reduce this uncertainty and improve our knowledge of biomass-burning emissions and their impacts. We encourage the submission of new findings on quantifying emissions from biomass burning sources.

Original research or review papers are invited in the following areas:

-         Emission source strength characterization from satellite, airborne, and/or in situ measurements
-         Laboratory and/or field experiments for emission strength characterization
-         Emission factors (for different aerosol and/or trace gas species)
-         Emission inventories (for different aerosol and/or trace gas species)
-         Model parameterization of biomass (burning) emissions
-         Plume-rise, transport, and inverse modeling of smoke plumes
-         Validation of emissions products
-         Other related research

Papers are selected by a rigorous peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, development and application.

Dr. Charles Ichoku
Guest Editor

Submission

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 300 CHF (Swiss Francs). English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• biomass burning
• biomass/smoke emissions
• carbon, aerosol, particulate matter (PM), and/or trace gas emissions
• emission factor
• emission inventory
• plume rise modeling
• remote sensing (ground-based, airborne, satellite)
• smoke source strength
• smoke (transport/inverse) modeling
• validation of emission