Fires in Australia warmed the stratosphere for six months

Bushfires in Australia from December 2019 to January 2020 destroyed trees, bushes and houses in the square

The fires were so large that the smoke was seen by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.The Australian government estimated that the cost of eliminating the consequences of the fires was approximately $103 billion.In the new study, researchers found that black particulate smoke was trapped in the stratosphere, leading to higher temperatures.

The stratosphere is about 10 to 50 km below the Earth's surface – notably, it is also the part of the atmosphere that holdsPrevious studies have shown that in some cases, smoke cancool the atmosphere by blocking heat from the Sun.If the smoke contains a large amount of particulate matter and they are black, then it is able to absorb heat fromsunlight and transmit it to the surrounding air.

To calculate how much heat was absorbed by the stratosphere, the researchers entered fire data into the Aerosol and Radiation Model for the Atmosphere (CARMA) and the Earth System Model (CESM).Both were developed at the University of Colorado and allowed scientists to make predictions about how much heat was trapped by particulate matter and its effect on stratospheric temperatures.They found that the temperature in the region rose from 1 to 2 degrees Celsius and remained so for about six months.The scientists also noted that the smoke particles temporarily enlarged the size of the zone hole.

A team of scientists from Jinan University, the University of Colorado Boulder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research published the results of the study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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