Name: Recent Australian wildfires led to record atmospheric pollution
Brand: newscientist.com
SKU: newscientist-com-158
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Recent Australian wildfires led to record atmospheric pollution

preview

×ByThe 2019–20 wildfires in Australia injected huge amounts of , which has led to record aerosol levels over the southern hemisphere.Ilan Koren at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and Eitan Hirsch at the Israel Institute for Biological Research analysed satellite data collected between 1981 and 2020 to look at what effect the in Australia had on aerosol concentrations in the stratosphere.While in the lower atmosphere have a lifetime measured in minutes to weeks, those that reach the stratosphere can persist there for months or years.AdvertisementThe researchers looked at aerosol optical depth, which measures how much aerosols contribute to the amount of reflected light picked up by satellites.The aerosol optical depth levels over the southern hemisphere in the early months of 2020 were at record levels: more than three standard deviations higher than the monthly averages prior to the wildfires, and comparable to those caused by a moderately large volcanic eruption.Although all fires were extinguished by early May, the researchers noted that stratospheric smoke persisted across the until at least July 2020, after which time it became more difficult to separate the smoke signal from other sources.The overall effect of aerosols in the stratosphere is one of the largest uncertainties in , says Koren.In the case of the Australian wildfires, the smoke cooled Earth by , leading to marked cooling over cloud-free ocean areas.“But [aerosols] can also warm the stratosphere by absorbing part of the radiation [from the sun] and therefore affect processes there,” says Koren.The intensity and location of the were particularly suitable for injecting smoke into the stratosphere. For instance, the fires were far enough south to be located at a relatively high latitude, where the border between the lower atmosphere and the stratosphere is thinner – around 9 kilometres, compared with 18 kilometres over the tropics. “When it is shallow, the deeper clouds can penetrate it more easily and inject smoke to the stratosphere,” says Koren.If at high latitudes in future, such as in southern Australia or the northern part of North America, we can expect these phenomena to become more common, says Koren.Journal reference: Science,More on these topics:AdvertisementTrendingLatestVideoFree

×ByThe 2019–20 wildfires in Australia injected huge amounts of , which has led to record aerosol levels over the southern hemisphere.Ilan Koren at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and Eitan Hirsch at the Israel Institute for Biological Research analysed satellite data collected between 1981 and 2020 to look at what effect the in Australia had on aerosol concentrations in the stratosphere.While in the lower atmosphere have a lifetime measured in minutes to weeks, those that reach the stratosphere can persist there for months or years.AdvertisementThe researchers looked at aerosol...

public

Donna Lu

#author.fullName}

The best place to find out what’s new in science – and why it matters.

newscientist.com

Credible

Speculation

Anecdotal Evidence

Generalization

Stacking the Deck

Appeal to Authority

Straw Man

Slippery Slope

Emotional Appeal

Red Herring

False Dilemma

Illogical

Moral Equivalency

Ad Hominem

Correlation w/o Causation

Semantics

Begging the Question

Faulty Analogy

Non Sequitur

Bandwagon

Dogmatism

Failing Occam's Razor

Biased

Pure Opinion

Hit Piece

Racial Bias

National Bias

Religious Bias

Financial Incentive

Political Agenda

Gender Bias

Misused Image/Video

Study Misinterpreted

Mistake

Misused Term

Science Misrepresented

Factual Error

Satire

Surface Level

Lack of Reliable Sources

Sensational

Not Credible

Investigative

Balanced

Well Sourced

Great Context

sports

entertainment

U.S.

international

business

technology

science

culture

politics

media

health

Recent Australian wildfires led to record atmospheric pollution

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS