Wildfire-driven thunderstorms cause a volcano-like stratospheric injection of smoke

Peterson, David A.; Campbell, James; Hyer, E. J.; Fromm, M.; Kablick, George P.; Cossuth, Joshua H.; DeLand, Matthew T.

doi:10.1038/s41612-018-0039-3

Cited by 205 publications

(333 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Black carbon (soot) is black, and highly absorptive of sunlight, causing lofting to the upper stratosphere and prolonging the lifetime in the stratosphere by years. This was shown in all our modeling work and observed after the 2017 British Columbia pyrocumulonimbus event (Peterson et al, ; Yu et al, ). Soot aerosol particles grow as fractals, limiting the effects of mass on fall speed.…”

supporting

confidence: 83%

Comment on “Climate Impact of a Regional Nuclear Weapon Exchange: An Improved Assessment Based on Detailed Source Calculations” by Reisner et al.

2019

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Reisner et al. revisited a study we had done modeling the climate impacts of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, in which fires started by 100 15‐kt atomic bombs would produce 5 Tg of soot injected into the upper troposphere, and subsequently lofted into the lower stratosphere. Their claim that there would be much less smoke than in our results is wrong for several reasons. They chose a target area of suburban Atlanta that includes a golf course, playground, and individual houses with large yards, with little material to burn, which is not representative of densely populated cities in India and Pakistan. The fire they modeled is not typical of the type of mass fire likely to result from a nuclear attack on cities. They used winds that are stronger than typical winds. They did not allow moist convection, which would be important in convective lofting of the smoke. Their claim that if they included convection the resulting rain would wash out the smoke is not supported by observations of pyrocumulonimbus injection of smoke into the stratosphere from forest fires. And they used a fire model that they have not made available for other scientists to try to reproduce their work, and which has not been shown to accurately simulate firestorms observed in Hamburg, Dresden, and Hiroshima during World War II. They significantly underestimate the amount of smoke, and climate and agricultural impacts likely after a nuclear war.

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confidence: 83%

Comment on “Climate Impact of a Regional Nuclear Weapon Exchange: An Improved Assessment Based on Detailed Source Calculations” by Reisner et al.

2019

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“…To represent the vertical variation in the smoke plumes and to allow for direct stratospheric injection of pyroCb smoke emissions, we must incorporate injection heights with the pyroCb emission estimates from Peterson et al (2018). Altitude of emission injection has been shown in many previous studies to be significant in determining aerosol transport and residence time (Colarco et al, 2004;Field et al, 2016;Leung et al, 2007;Turquety et al, 2007;Val Martin et al, 2010).…”

Section: Creation Of 3-d Pyrocb Emissionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radiative Forcing and Stratospheric Warming of Pyrocumulonimbus Smoke Aerosols: First Modeling Results With Multisensor (EPIC, CALIPSO, and CATS) Views from Space

Christian

Wang

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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Smoke particles can be injected by pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, but their effects on the radiative budget of the planet remain elusive. Here, by focusing on the record‐setting Pacific Northwest pyroCb event of August 2017, we show with satellite‐based estimates of pyroCb emissions and injection heights in a chemical transport model (GEOS‐Chem) that pyroCb smoke particles can result in radiative forcing of ∼0.02 W/m2 at the top of the atmosphere averaged globally in the 2 months following the event and up to 0.9 K/day heating in the Arctic upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The modeled aerosol distributions agree with observations from satellites (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera [EPIC], Cloud‐Aerosol Transport System [CATS], and Cloud‐Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization [CALIOP]), showing the hemispheric transport of pyroCb smoke aerosols with a lifetime of 5 months. Hence, warming by pyroCb aerosols can have similar temporal duration but opposite sign to the well‐documented cooling of volcanic aerosols and be significant for climate prediction.

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“…concluded that flaming, which occurs more in wildfires than in prescribed fires, produces aerosol that is more absorbing and has a lower SSA (the ratio of scattering to total extinction) compared with aerosols produced from smoldering combustion. The arid soils in this region may lead to more dust being lofted in and around the fires by updrafts, and thus, the coemission of dust/ash could influence the chemical and physical properties of smoke (Lindsey et al, 2010;Peterson et al, 2018;Wagner et al, 2018). These two regions also have different meteorological conditions that could impact the smoke properties.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Decadal Climatology of Chemical, Physical, and Optical Properties of Ambient Smoke in the Western and Southeastern United States

et al. 2020

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Biomass burning is a major source of summertime fine particulate matter in the United States, degrading air quality and affecting human health and climate. Fuels, burn conditions, and fire types vary across the United States, which may impact smoke composition and optical properties. We use the Hazard Mapping System to track smoke plumes for 10 years from 2008 to 2017, focusing on three U.S. regions: Southeast, Pacific West, and Southwest. Combining this geospatial data set with AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) columnar data, and Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network in situ observations, we define "smoke-influenced days" and derive the properties of smoke aerosol for April through September, encompassing the main fire seasons across the United States. We find in the IMPROVE surface measurement that the elemental carbon fraction of smoke in the Southeast is statistically different from and lower than that in the west, consistent with more-smoldering prescribed fires in the southeast. We find in the AERONET columnar observations that the mean single scattering albedo of smoke (at 675 nm) is lower in the two western regions (~0.94) compared to the southeast (~0.96), consistent with the differences in composition and fire types, which implies that the compositional differences at the surface may be representative of the column. Higher relative humidity in the southeast and less dust associated with smoke also appear to contribute to the higher smoke single scattering albedo relative to the west. Our results show that smoke properties vary regionally, with implications for models, data assimilation, and remote-sensing.

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Wildfire-driven thunderstorms cause a volcano-like stratospheric injection of smoke

Cited by 205 publications

References 41 publications

Comment on “Climate Impact of a Regional Nuclear Weapon Exchange: An Improved Assessment Based on Detailed Source Calculations” by Reisner et al.

Comment on “Climate Impact of a Regional Nuclear Weapon Exchange: An Improved Assessment Based on Detailed Source Calculations” by Reisner et al.

Radiative Forcing and Stratospheric Warming of Pyrocumulonimbus Smoke Aerosols: First Modeling Results With Multisensor (EPIC, CALIPSO, and CATS) Views from Space

A Decadal Climatology of Chemical, Physical, and Optical Properties of Ambient Smoke in the Western and Southeastern United States

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