Science: Record-Crushing Oz Fires of 2019-20 Produced Record Aerosols In Southern Stratosphere

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The 2019–20 wildfires in Australia injected huge amounts of smoke into the stratosphere, 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 devastating bushfire season in Australia had on aerosol concentrations in the stratosphere.

While aerosols in the lower atmosphere have a lifetime measured in minutes to weeks, those that reach the stratosphere can persist there for months or years. The 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.

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https://www.newscientist.com/article/2271829-recent-australian-wildfires-led-to-record-atmospheric-pollution/