Impact of extreme wildfires from the Brazilian Forests and sugarcane burn- ing on the air quality of the biggest megacity on South America

Autor(es)

Souto-Oliveira, Carlos E. ; Marques, Marcia T. A. ; Nogueira, Thiago ; Lopes, Fabio J. S. ; Medeiros, Jose A. G. ; Medeiros, Ilca M. M. A. ; Moreira, Gregori A. ; Dias, Pedro Leite da Silva ; Landulfo, Eduardo ; Andrade, Maria de F.

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: Science of The Total Environment; v. 888, p. 10-pg., 2023-05-23.

Resumo

Recently, extreme wildfires have damaged important ecosystems worldwide and have affected urban areas miles away due to long-range transport of smoke plumes. We performed a comprehensive analysis to clarify how smoke plumes from Pantanal and Amazon forests wildfires and sugarcane harvest burning also from interior of the state of Sao Paulo (ISSP) were transported and injected into the atmosphere of the Metropolitan Area of Sao Paulo (MASP), where they worsened air quality and increased greenhouse gas (GHG) levels. To classify event days, multiple biomass burning fingerprints as carbon isotopes, Lidar ratio and specific compounds ratios were combined with back trajecto-ries modeling. During smoke plume event days in the MASP fine particulate matter concentrations exceeded the WHO standard (>25 mu g m-3), at 99 %of the air quality monitoring stations, and peak CO2 excess were 100 %to 1178 % higher than non-event days. We demonstrated how external pollution events such as wildfires pose an additional challenge for cities, regarding public health threats associated to air quality, and reinforces the importance of GHG monitoring networks to track local and remote GHG emissions and sources in urban areas. (AU)

• Processo FAPESP: 19/17304-9 - Sistema de gerenciamento de dados, plataforma de integração e visualização rápida
• Beneficiário: Márcia Talita Amorim Marques
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Programa Capacitação - Treinamento Técnico
• Processo FAPESP: 16/18438-0 - Área Metropolitana de São Paulo: abordagem integrada mudanças climáticas e qualidade do ar, METROCLIMA MASP
• Beneficiário: Maria de Fátima Andrade
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio à Pesquisa - Programa de Pesquisa sobre Mudanças Climáticas Globais - Temático
• Processo FAPESP: 19/16885-8 - Identificação das fontes de MP2.5 em São Paulo
• Beneficiário: Carlos Eduardo Souto de Oliveira
• Modalidade de apoio: Bolsas no Brasil - Pós-Doutorado