ИСТИНА

Huge amounts of air pollution are released worldwide into atmosphere by annual burning of billions tons of biomass such as wood, leaves, trees, grass, and peat. Smoke particles represent the most strongly absorbing atmospheric aerosols, inducing atmospheric warming and climate change. They are found to be effective cloud condensation nuclei and can force climate indirectly by modifying cloud microphysics and reflectivity. At the regional level BB-derived particles are considered as a dangerous toxic pollutant with respect to human health. Current ability to predict the climate changes and health impacts is strongly limited by large uncertainties associated with characterization of biomass burning (BB) aerosols emitted by intensive wildfires. Summer 2010 brought an unusual heat into Eastern Europe, thus temperatures in Moscow during July and August were from 16°C to 18°C above normal. Russia has experienced the worst drought since 1972 collocated with anomalous anticyclonic circulation. Heat and dry conditions provoked numerous wildfires of forest, peat bogs, and infrastructure in western and central parts of the country. Continuously spreading fires resulted in high gaseous and particulate emissions which transported through atmosphere, caused episodes of extreme air pollution in many parts of Russia and Europe1. This study reports data about aerosol physico-chemistry of Moscow extreme smoke event in August 2010. Broad chemical features are inferred from individual particle analysis, elemental analysis, analysis of EC and OC, molecular biomarkers, ionic content, and organic/inorganic structure. They show that smoke aerosols compose a broad class of morphologically and chemically heterogeneous species which always undergo evolution during transport and aging. The data presented here improve our knowledge base for the type of aerosols emitted from wildfires in the boundary layer, especially due to frequent break outs in Russia and Europe, leading to extreme smoke episodes, affecting profound visibility, public health and mortality.