Evaluation of the immediate impact of the 2025 Korean wildfires on the air quality over South Korea based on satellite and reanalysis data analyses

Evaluation of the immediate impact of the 2025 Korean wildfires on the air quality over South Korea based on satellite and reanalysis data analyses | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Evaluation of the immediate impact of the 2025 Korean wildfires on the air quality over South Korea based on satellite and reanalysis data analyses Donghee Lee, Juhee Lee, Sangjun Kim, Jhoon Kim, Min Ju Yeo, Jeong-Ah Yu, and 3 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8958347/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 6 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Based on the combination of multiple satellite and reanalysis data, we conducted the evaluation of unprecedented large wildfires in South Korea during March 2025. This wildfire event was quite enormous for changing the climatology of Korean wildfire properties in recent 20 years. In spite of moderate performance, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the sensor of low-earth orbit satellite, did not perfectly capture the smoke plume from this event. When we utilized the Geostationary Environment Monitoring Spectrometer (GEMS), however, we clearly detected the plume generation having high aerosol density, revealing that the geostationary satellite sensor enables to play a role of the biomass burning monitoring better. Additionally, we could see the enhancement of carbon monoxide even around ~ 10 km altitude over the wildfire area using the measurement of limb-viewing satellite (Microwave Limb Sounder, MLS), implying the potential impact of burning event to the upper tropospheric chemistry. We also found that multiple reanalysis data can detect the region that smoke plume affects during this wildfire event of March 2025, but also confirmed the necessity to improve reanalysis data quality especially for the spatial resolution. This study can be a useful reference for showing how to use the existed satellite and reanalysis dataset when the urgent diagnosis of atmospheric change is needed related to the occurrence of wildfire events. Wildfire satellite data analysis reanalysis data analysis South Korea Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files DLeeKORwildfireSupple260224.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 09 May, 2026 Reviewers agreed at journal 10 Apr, 2026 Reviewers invited by journal 10 Apr, 2026 Editor assigned by journal 03 Mar, 2026 Submission checks completed at journal 27 Feb, 2026 First submitted to journal 24 Feb, 2026 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8958347","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":621017291,"identity":"fb0eb6a6-68b5-429b-a3d6-95dfa1f42e68","order_by":0,"name":"Donghee Lee","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Yonsei University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Donghee","middleName":"","lastName":"Lee","suffix":""},{"id":621017298,"identity":"0f952859-18df-4a58-bb71-76b9189ca030","order_by":1,"name":"Juhee Lee","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Yonsei 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