HR: 16:45h
AN: A44C-03    [Abstracts]
TI: Polar Pollution by Pyroconvection: Assessing the transport of smoke into the Arctic and Antarctic
AU: * Fromm, M D
EM: mike.fromm@nrl.navy.mil
AF: Naval Research Lab, 4555 Overlook Ave., S.W., Washington, DC 20375, United States
AU: Stocks, B J
EM: brianstocks@sympatico.ca
AF: B.J. Stocks Wildfire Investigations Ltd., 128 Chambers Ave, Sault Ste. Marie, ON P6A4V4, Canada
AU: Hoff, R
EM: hoff@umbc.edu
AF: UMBC, 5523 Research Park Drive, Suite 320, Baltmore, MD 21228, United States
AB: In northern summer of 2007 boreal forest fires erupted into pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) on two continents and injected substantial amounts of smoke into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). Some of this smoke was transported into high Arctic latitudes where it was observed by ground and space-based instruments. In the Austral summer of 2006/2007 an extremely intense pyroCb in Victoria Australia also polluted the UTLS, from tropical to Antarctic latitudes. This wide-ranging influence of a "small", discrete event such as a fire-aided thunderstorm implies that the pyroCb's weather and climate context needs to be much better understood. Here we will present two case studies from the above-mentioned seasons. The Austral case will include an analysis of the immediate post-blowup smoke plume as observed by MODIS imagery and OMI aerosol index (AI). Then the plume will be followed as it circles the globe and spreads to meridional extremes using AI, CALIPSO backscatter, and geostationary satellite visible imagery. The boreal study will summarize the notable pyroCbs of 2007. One of these was in Mongolia, the first such unambiguously determined Asian pyroCb. The main focus of this analysis will on the observations of stratospheric smoke subsequent to these blowups in midlatitudes observed by CALIPSO, and Arctic smoke observed by both CALIPSO and ground-based lidar at Eureka.
DE: 0305 Aerosols and particles (0345, 4801, 4906)
DE: 0345 Pollution: urban and regional (0305, 0478, 4251)
DE: 1610 Atmosphere (0315, 0325)
DE: 1637 Regional climate change
SC: Atmospheric Sciences [A]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting