Researchers with the University of Saskatchewan’s (USask) Institute of Space and Atmospheric Studies are part of a global team that has found that the smoke cloud pushed into the stratosphere by last winter’s Australian wildfires was three times larger than anything previously recorded.
The cloud, which measured 1,000 kilometres across, remained intact for three months, travelled 66,000 kilometres, and soared to a height of 35 kilometres above Earth. The findings were published in Communications Earth & Environment, part of the prestigious Nature family of research journals.
“When I saw the satellite measurement of the smoke plume at 35 kilometres, it was jaw dropping. I never would have expected that,” said Adam Bourassa, professor of physics and engineering physics, who led the USask group which played a key role in analyzing NASA satellite data.
Prior to Australia’s “Black Summer,” which burned 5.8 million hectares of forest in the southeast part of that continent, the smoke cloud caused by the 2017 forest fires in Western Canada was the largest on record.
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Image via David Stobbe.