EGU23-8887, updated on 26 Feb 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-8887
EGU General Assembly 2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Vegetation losses due to surface ozone concentrations from fires in Portugal mainland 

Catarina Alonso1,2 and Célia Gouveia1,3
Catarina Alonso and Célia Gouveia
  • 1Instituto Português do Mar e Atmosfera (IPMA), Lisboa, Portugal (catarina.alonso@ipma.pt)
  • 2Centre for the Research and Technology of Agroenvironmental and Biological Sciences (CITAB), Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal
  • 3Instituto Dom Luiz (IDL), Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

Tropospheric ozone (O3) is an important anthropogenic gas, and it is a secondary air pollutant. The combination of sunlight with non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) and NOx (NO + NO2) from biomass burning results in significant photochemical production of O3. Since the fire season in Portugal occurs during the summer, these emitted O3 precursors lead to the production of O3. An excessive concentration of tropospheric O3 damage leaves, decreasing photosynthesis, plant growth and biomass accumulation and costing, therefore, billions of dollars annually in lost plant productivity.

The main objective of this work is to understand if there is a relationship between the loss in crop yields due to the concentration of O3 derived from fires, in Portugal mainland. Therefore, this work is divided into three phases: i) to evaluate the relationship between tropospheric O3 and extreme fires; ii) relate the contribution of O3 to vegetation productivity contraction; and iii) relate the fire-induced O3 increments to vegetation losses. To access to tropospheric O3 concentration data Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) products were used. The AIRS Version 7 Level 3 product are daily, gridded mean geophysical parameters on 1°x1° grid cells, with higher internal vertical resolution at 100 pressure levels (1000 hPa – 1 hPa). The CAMS reanalysis (CAMSRA) O3 data have a temporal resolution of 3 h and a spatial resolution of approximately 80 km (0.7°x0.7° grid cells) with 60 hybrid sigma–pressure (model) levels (13 levels, 400 - 100 hPa) in the vertical (top level at 0.1 hPa).  Vegetation productivity is assessed by means of Gross Primary Production (GPP) available from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) collections. It can be concluded that when fires occur in large areas, such as the fires of 2012 (Serra do Caldeirão) and 2018 (Monchique) the levels of surface O3 concentration have a high increase, which can lead to a decrease in vegetation and crop productivity.

Acknowledgements: This study is partially supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research project FirEUrisk (Grant Agreement no. 101003890) and by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) I.P./MCTES through national funds (PIDDAC) – UIDB/50019/2020- IDL,  DHEFEUS - 2022.09185.PTDC

How to cite: Alonso, C. and Gouveia, C.: Vegetation losses due to surface ozone concentrations from fires in Portugal mainland , EGU General Assembly 2023, Vienna, Austria, 24–28 Apr 2023, EGU23-8887, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu23-8887, 2023.