air quality | AK Fire Science Highlights

A recent study headed by the University of Washington is catching national media attention currently as it points to a connection between exposure to wildfire smoke and dementia in older adults from a large study in California. One new advance is the ability to distinguish between ambient wildfire smoke vs. other types of fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) exposure. Although the team’s publication in PubMed is pay-walled (Elser, et al. 2024), you can read a concise description of their work in this November, 2024 Research Highlight by the NIH National Institute on Aging, by Brian Doctrow, PhD. In a nutshell, among 1.2 million Californians aged 60+, there did seem to be a connection between neighborhood wildfire PM2.5 exposure and dementia diagnosis, which was considerably stronger than the connection with other types of fine particulate exposure. For every 1 μg/m³ increase in average wildfire PM_2.5, the odds of receiving a dementia diagnosis increased by 18%.

*Matsu engine protecting Nenana during the Parks Highway fire, 2006* (*Photo: State of Alaska, DNR*).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just ~15 official air quality monitoring sites around the immense area of Alaska to monitor air pollutants that can affect human health. Wildfire smoke, for example, produced about 60,000 tons of PM2.5 in 2018 (400,000 acres were burned –just a moderate fire season for Alaska!) If data from lower quality private and academic air sensors (called “Purple Air”) could also be used, we could add an additional 100 monitoring sites to better understand and forecast air quality. NASA ABoVE scientists Allison Baer and Tatiana Loboda from the University of Maryland compared EPA and Purple Air sensor data and came up with calibrations that correlate extremely well (coded T&RH—see example graphic below). You can view their Interactive Poster at the 6^th ABoVE Science Team meeting—this week (Jun 1-4): https://astm6-agu.ipostersessions.com/default.aspx?s=09-98-87-A0-E6-1A-FA-E4-79-58-CF-F8-B6-54-4B-79