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This research investigates the effects of transported wildfire smoke on air quality in urban settings, focusing on mixing processes in the planetary boundary layer.

April 16, 2026

Continental wildfire smoke transport and strong mixing into urban PBL in New York City, as observed by synergistic satellite, LiDAR, and other complementary measurements

Key Points

This research investigates the effects of transported wildfire smoke on air quality in urban settings, focusing on mixing processes in the planetary boundary layer.
Utilized synergistic satellite and lidar measurements for data collection.
Analyzed two episodes of dense smoke intrusions from Canadian wildfires in June 2023.
Examined variations in smoke optical properties, ozone, and PM2.5 concentrations during smoke events.
Demonstrated large exceedances of PM2.5 concentration above National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).
Showed differing impacts on ozone levels between two smoke episodes—decrease in Episode-1 and increase in Episode-2.
Indicated variations in microphysical properties of smoke through Angstrom exponent and lidar-ratio observations.

Abstract

Wildfire smoke in North-America are frequently observed in New York City (NYC, 40.82°N, 73.95°W) area. It is important to investigate the transported smoke mixing with urban planetary boundary layer (PBL) for assessing their impacts on air quality (AQ). This study presents an integrated observation of transported smoke from the Canadian wildfires with co-located elastic-Raman lidar, ozone-DIAL and Coherent Doppler Wind lidar in June 2023. Two episodes of dense smoke are analyzed that show variations of smoke optical properties, ozone (O3) and PM2.5 concentrations during the period of smoke intrusions on June 6-8 and June 29-July 1, 2023. Different advection and vertical mixing processes in the PBL are indicated for the two episodes. Smoke plume mixing in the PBL are indicated that results in large exceedance of National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) of PM2.5 concentration. The variations of Angstrom exponent and lidar-ratio indicate different microphysical properties of aged smoke particles. In addition, near-surface O3 mixing ratios decrease for the Episode-1 (June 6-7) due to heavily-dense smoke attenuating sunlight whereas for the Episode-2 (moderately-dense smoke) O3 concentrations increase in the PBL and at near-surface.

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