Contribution of biomass and biofuel emissions to trace gas distributions in Asia during the TRACE‐P experiment

A comprehensive emission inventory with enhanced spatial and temporal resolution is used to help quantify the contribution from three source categories (fossil, biofuel, and biomass burning) during the NASA TRACE‐P experiment. Daily biomass burning emissions are developed to support this analysis. Emissions of 27 species and their ratios, by sector, region, and source category are presented. The emission distributions and chemical composition are further analyzed using various statistical techniques. Using cluster analysis, the 27 chemical species are combined into 8 groups that have similar regional distribution, and 52 regions are assembled into 11 regional groups that have similar chemical composition. These groups are used in Chemical Mass Balance analysis to characterize air masses and to quantify the contribution of the three source categories to the observed species distributions. Five DC8 flights with 16 flight segments associated with outflow events are analyzed. In general, Asian outflow is a complex mixture of biofuel, biomass, and fossil sources. Flights in the post frontal regions at high latitudes and low altitudes have a high contribution of fossil fuel emissions. Flights in the warm sector of cold fronts are dominated by biomass burning contributions (about 70%). Biofuel contributions are high (about 70%) when air masses come from central China. The receptor model results are shown to be consistent with other 3‐D chemical model sensitivity studies and analysis using ratios of indicator species (e.g., d K + / d SO 4 2− , CH 3 CN/ SOy , SO y /CO, and C 2 Cl 4 /CO).