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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Contents Vol 33(10)

Is the smoke aloft? Caveats regarding the use of the Hazard Mapping System (HMS) smoke product as a proxy for surface smoke presence across the United States

Tianjia Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3129-0154 A G * , Frances Marie Panday B , Miah C. Caine C , Makoto Kelp A , Drew C. Pendergrass D , Loretta J. Mickley D , Evan A. Ellicott B , Miriam E. Marlier E , Ravan Ahmadov F and Eric P. James F
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

B Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.

C Department of Computer Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

D John A. Paulson School of Engineering, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

E Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

F Global Systems Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO, USA.

G Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

* Correspondence to: tianjia.liu@ubc.ca

International Journal of Wildland Fire 33, WF23148 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF23148
Submitted: 8 September 2023  Accepted: 19 August 2024  Published: 2 October 2024

© 2024 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background

NOAA’s Hazard Mapping System (HMS) smoke product comprises smoke plumes digitised from satellite imagery. Recent studies have used HMS as a proxy for surface smoke presence.

Aims

We compare HMS with airport observations, air quality station measurements and model estimates of near-surface smoke.

Methods

We quantify the agreement in numbers of smoke days and trends, regional discrepancies in levels of near-surface smoke fine particulate matter (PM2.5) within HMS polygons, and separation of total PM2.5 on smoke and non-smoke days across the contiguous US and Alaska from 2010 to 2021.

Key results

We find large overestimates in HMS-derived smoke days and trends if we include light smoke plumes in the HMS smoke day definition. Outside the western US and Alaska, near-surface smoke PM2.5 within areas of HMS smoke plumes is low and almost indistinguishable across density categories, likely indicating frequent smoke aloft.

Conclusions

Compared with airport, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and model-derived estimates, HMS most closely reflects surface smoke in the Pacific and Mountain regions and Alaska when smoke days are defined using only heavy plumes or both medium and heavy plumes.

Implications

We recommend careful consideration of biases in the HMS smoke product for air quality and public health assessments of fires.

Keywords: data evaluation, emissions, fine particulate matter, fires, Hazard Mapping System, observations, PM2.5, pollutants: air, remote sensing, satellite data, scale: regional, smoke.

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