Impact of Siberia forest fires on the atmospheric environment over the Korean Peninsula during summer 2014

Abstract. Extensive forest fires occurred during the late July, 2014 across the Siberia forest region, Russia. Smoke plumes emitted from the Siberia forest fires were long-range transported through Mongolia and northeast China, and down to the Korean Peninsula, which is located at ~3,000 km south of the Siberia forest. Notably high aerosol optical depth (AOD) of ~4 was observed at a wavelength of 500 nm near the source region of the Siberia forest fires. The smoke plumes reached about 3–5 km height near the source region and then below 2 km height near the Korean Peninsula. Elevated concentration of levoglucosan was observed as an average of 119.7 ± 6.0 ng m-3 (mean ± one standard deviation) which was ~4.5 times higher than those observed during the non-event period in July, 2014. During the middle of July 2014, another type of haze episode occurred that was mainly caused by long-range transported haze plumes originated from urban and industrial complexes in the East China. Sharp increases in SO42- concentrations (23.1 ± 2.1 μg m-3) were observed during the Chinese haze episode. The haze episode caused by the long-range transported Siberia forest fires was clearly distinguished with relatively high OC/EC ratio (7.18 ± 0.2) and OC/SO42- ratio (1.31 ± 0.07) compared to those (OC/EC ratio: 2.4 ± 0.4, OC/SO42- ratio: 0.21 ± 0.05) during the Chinese haze episode. Remote measurement techniques and chemical analyses of the haze plumes clearly showed that the haze episode occurred during the late July, 2014 was mainly caused by the long-range transported smoke plumes emitted from Siberia forest fires.