Abstract: Biomass burning, which includes wildfires, agricultural burning, prescribed fires, and residential combustion, is an important source of primary and secondary organic aerosols (POA, SOA) to the atmosphere and it consequently has adverse impacts on air quality, climate, and human health. Yet, there are large uncertainties in how the emissions, evolution, and properties of biomass burning organic aerosol (OA) are represented in atmospheric models. In this work, I will share work from three published studies where we have used a kinetic, process-level model to simulate the photochemical evolution of OA in laboratory experiments performed on biomass burning emissions and in large wildfire plumes targeted via aircraft campaigns. Across these studies, we conclude that oxygenated VOCs are important SOA precursors in biomass burning emissions and near-fire dynamics, dilution-driven evaporation, and photochemical processes make key contributions to the photochemical evolution of OA in wildfire plumes. Our work contributes to a process-level understanding of biomass burning OA that is relevant for evolution at plume, regional, and global scales.

Bio: Dr. Shantanu Jathar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University whose research interests lie in the disciplines of air quality and atmospheric chemistry. More specifically, his research group studies the emissions, properties, and impacts of atmospheric aerosols arising from anthropogenic and natural sources. He has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the Government College of Engineering Pune, an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. Additionally, he also worked as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Davis. In his spare time, he likes to run, bike, hike and paddle with his spouse and kids, drink coffee, and play the bansuri.