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(ANSA) – SYDNEY, DECEMBER 14 – Australia’s disastrous 2019-20 summer fire season, renamed “Black Summer”, generated so much smoke in the upper atmosphere that it leaked sunlight, also causing brief global cooling.
Research published in Communications Earth and Environment describes how devastating fires in vast regions of the southeastern continent gave rise to a wave of fire-induced storm clouds, called pyro-cumulonimbus, or pyroCbs, which in turn injected plumes of smoke. in the stratosphere, the layer of the atmosphere that begins at about 14,000 meters above sea level. At that level, the plumes of smoke gave rise to new winds, creating self-powered eddies that encircled the globe, rising in part to an unprecedented level more than 32,000 meters from the Earth’s surface.
Data from the study, conducted by the Sorbonne University Atmospheric Research Laboratory, and presented days ago at the American Geophysical Union virtual conference, show that the smoke acted as a planetary-sized shadow area, shrinking for several months. the amount of sunlight projected onto the earth’s surface.
“A better understanding of pyrocumulonimbus clouds can save lives, as these clouds are caused by violent fires and can create extreme weather events on the ground, causing sudden changes in wind direction, endangering emergency crews and communities, “he writes. the head of the studio Sergey Khaykin. “The Australian fires have fundamentally revolutionized the understanding of the climate-altering potential of large fires,” the expert adds. (HANDLE).
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