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Abstract:
Summer 2012 was one of the extreme wildfire years in Siberia. At the surface air
monitoring station “ZOTTO” (60°48′N, 89°21′E, 114 m a.s.l.) in Central Siberia we observed
biomass burning (BB) influence on the ongoing atmospheric measurements within more than
50 % of the time in June-July 2012 that indicates a 30 times greater wildfire signal compared to
previously reported ordinary biomass burning signature for the study area. While previous
studies thoroughly estimated a relative input of BB into aerosol composition (i.e. size
distribution, physical and optical parameters etc.) at ZOTTO, in this paper we characterize the
source apportionment of the smoke aerosols with molecular tracer techniques from large-scale
wildfires occurred in 2012 in the two prevailing types of Central Siberian ecosystems:
complexes of pine forests and bogs and dark coniferous forests. Wildfires in the selected
ecosystems are highly differed by their combustion phase (flaming/smoldering), the type of fire
(crown/ground), biomass fuel, and nature of soil that greatly determines the smoke particle
composition. Anhydrosugars (levoglucosan and its isomers) and lignin phenols taken as
indicators of the sources and the state of particulate matter (PM) inputs in the specific fire
plumes were used as powerful tools to compare wildfires in different environmental conditions
and follow the role and contribution of different sources of terrestrial organic matter in the
transport of BB pollutants into the pristine atmosphere of boreal zone in Central Siberia.
