Impressive footage from NASA shows the smoke from these fires reaching the stratosphere over Chile.
https://youtu.be/_anHG8awnUgAnd this article from a (real) scientist covers a lot of interesting points to consider about the possible impacts that fires of this scale can have on the global weather patterns.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marshallshepherd/2020/01/05/how-fires-in-australia-could-alter-weather-elsewhere-too/#32efeb35e2c8I found this section especially interesting;
“Another potential and far-reaching impact is related to the Pyrocumulonimbus clouds that I mentioned earlier. A 2019 study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that the smoke plumes from towering smoke-laden clouds can penetrate into the stratosphere. Using the 2017 fires in the Pacific Northwest, they found from modeling studies that the smoke aerosols can linger in the stratosphere up to 5 months and actually create net warming at the top of atmosphere. Smoke contains soot, an effective of absorber of solar radiation. This is counter to the temporary cooling effect that large volcanic eruptions can have on the climate system. Volcanic aerosols injected into the stratosphere tend to be more sulfate-based, which are more effective scatterers of solar energy.”
So we have smoke from our bush fires reaching the stratosphere above Chile. We now know that smoke in the stratosphere can have a net warming effect.
And for the last piece of the puzzle.
Many (real) scientists flagged mid last year that stratospheric warming above Antarctica would cause Australia to have an extremely hot summer, peaking in January 2020.
This article from September last year sums it up pretty clearly;
http://theconversation.com/the-air-above-antarctica-is-suddenly-getting-warmer-heres-what-it-means-for-australia-123080Specifically this section;
“What can Australia expect?
Impacts from this stratospheric warming are likely to reach Earth’s surface in the next month and possibly extend through to January.
Apart from warming the Antarctic region, the most notable effect will be a shift of the Southern Ocean westerly winds towards the Equator.
For regions directly in the path of the strongest westerlies, which includes western Tasmania, New Zealand’s South Island, and Patagonia in South America, this generally results in more storminess and rainfall, and colder temperatures.
But for subtropical Australia, which largely sits north of the main belt of westerlies, the shift results in reduced rainfall, clearer skies, and warmer temperatures.
Past stratospheric warming events and associated wind changes have had their strongest effects in NSW and southern Queensland, where springtime temperatures increased, rainfall decreased and heatwaves and fire risk rose.”
And now we’ve come full circle.
Stratospheric warming over Antarctica helped cause Australia to heat up and dry out more then usual.
This hotter dryer weather caused bigger bush fires then usual.
The smoke from these bigger then usual fires has now reached the stratosphere and started warming the air above the Andes.
Will be very interesting to see what the global flow on affects of this smoke from our fires will have in the near future.
