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A recent letter [Fromm et al., 2000] postulated a link between boreal forest fire smoke and observed stratospheric aerosol enhancements in 1998. Therein a case was made that severe convection played a role in the cross‐tropopause transport. A similar occurrence of stratospheric aerosol enhancements in the boreal summer of 2001 was the stimulus to investigate the causal mechanism more deeply. Herein, we show a detailed case illustrating the unambiguous creation of a widespread, dense smoke cloud in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UT/LS) by a Canadian forest fire and explosive convection in May 2001. This event is the apparent common point for several downstream stratospheric mystery cloud observations. Implications of this finding and those pertaining to the boreal summer of 1998 are that convection and boreal biomass burning have an under‐resolved and under‐appreciated impact on the upper troposphere, lower stratosphere, radiative transfer, and atmospheric chemistry.

We report observations and analysis of a pyro‐cumulonimbus event in the midst of a boreal forest fire blowup in Northwest Territories Canada, near Norman Wells, on 3–4 August 1998. We find that this blowup caused a five‐fold increase in lower stratospheric aerosol burden, as well as multiple reports of anomalous enhancements of tropospheric gases and aerosols across Europe 1 week later. Our observations come from solar occultation satellites (POAM III and SAGE II), nadir imagers (GOES, AVHRR, SeaWiFS, DMSP), TOMS, lidar, and backscattersonde. First, we provide a detailed analysis of the 3 August eruption of extreme pyro‐convection. This includes identifying the specific pyro‐cumulonimbus cells that caused the lower stratospheric aerosol injection, and a meteorological analysis. Next, we characterize the altitude, composition, and opacity of the post‐convection smoke plume on 4–7 August. Finally, the stratospheric impact of this injection is analyzed. Satellite images reveal two noteworthy pyro‐cumulonimbus phenomena: (1) an active‐convection cloud top containing enough smoke to visibly alter the reflectivity of the cloud anvil in the Upper Troposphere Lower Stratosphere (UTLS) and (2) a smoke plume, that endured for at least 2 hours, atop an anvil. The smoke pall deposited by the Norman Wells pyro‐convection was a very large, optically dense, UTLS‐level plume on 4 August that exhibited a mesoscale cyclonic circulation. An analysis of plume color/texture from SeaWiFS data, aerosol index, and brightness temperature establishes the extreme altitude and “pure” smoke composition of this unique plume. We show what we believe to be a first‐ever measurement of strongly enhanced ozone in the lower stratosphere mingled with smoke layers. We conclude that two to four extreme pyro‐thunderstorms near Norman Wells created a smoke injection of hemispheric scope that substantially increased stratospheric optical depth, transported aerosols 7 km above the tropopause (above ∼430 K potential temperature), and also perturbed lower stratospheric ozone.

Abstract. Wildland fires in boreal regions have the potential to initiate deep convection, so-called pyro-convection, due to their release of sensible heat. Under favorable atmospheric conditions, large fires can result in pyro-convection that transports the emissions into the upper troposphere and the lower stratosphere. Here, we present three-dimensional model simulations of the injection of fire emissions into the lower stratosphere by pyro-convection. These model simulations are constrained and evaluated with observations obtained from the Chisholm fire in Alberta, Canada, in 2001. The active tracer high resolution atmospheric model (ATHAM) is initialized with observations obtained by radiosonde. Information on the fire forcing is obtained from ground-based observations of the mass and moisture of the burned fuel. Based on radar observations, the pyroconvection reached an altitude of about 13 km, well above the tropopause, which was located at about 11.2 km. The model simulation yields a similarly strong convection with an overshoot of the convection above the tropopause. The main outflow from the pyro-convection occurs at about 10.6 km, but a significant fraction (about 8%) of the emitted mass of the smoke aerosol is transported above the tropopause. In contrast to regular convection, the region with maximum updraft velocity in the pyro-convection is located close to the surface above the fire. This results in high updraft velocities >10 m s −1 at cloud base. The temperature anomaly in the plume decreases rapidly with height from values above 50 K at the fire to about 5 K at about 3000 m above the fire. WhileCorrespondence to: J. Trentmann (jtrent@uni-mainz.de) the sensible heat released from the fire is responsible for the initiation of convection in the model, the release of latent heat from condensation and freezing dominates the overall energy budget. Emissions of water vapor from the fire do not significantly contribute to the energy budget of the convection.