Australian wildfire smoke in the stratosphere: the decay phase in 2020/2021 and impact on ozone depletion

Ohneiser, Kevin; Ansmann, Albert; Kaifler, Bernd; Chudnovsky, Alexandra; Barja, Boris; Knopf, Daniel A.; Kaifler, Natalie; Baars, Holger; Seifert, Patric; Villanueva, Diego; Jimenez, Cristofer; Radenz, Martin; Engelmann, Ronny; Veselovskii, Igor; Zamorano, Félix

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7417-2022

Articles | Volume 22, issue 11

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7417-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-22-7417-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 11

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

09 Jun 2022

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 09 Jun 2022

Australian wildfire smoke in the stratosphere: the decay phase in 2020/2021 and impact on ozone depletion

Kevin Ohneiser, Albert Ansmann, Bernd Kaifler, Alexandra Chudnovsky, Boris Barja, Daniel A. Knopf, Natalie Kaifler, Holger Baars, Patric Seifert, Diego Villanueva, Cristofer Jimenez, Martin Radenz, Ronny Engelmann, Igor Veselovskii, and Félix Zamorano

Data sets

Aerosol Robotic Network aerosol data base AERONET http://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/

FIRMS active fire/hotspot information Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/download/

CALIPSO data CALIPSO https://www-calipso.larc.nasa.gov/tools/data_avail/

Radiosonde data, daily launches University of Wyoming http://weather.uwyo.edu/upperair/sounding.html

Meteorological database Global Data Assimilation System (GDAS) https://www.ready.noaa.gov/gdas1.php

Executive editor

Wildfires have attracted increasing attention in recent years because of their effects on local air quality, as well as on regional and global climate. Ohneiser et al. documents with impressive accuracy the appearance of wildfire plumes in the stratosphere over Australia in 2020/2021, showing strong influence on stratospheric ozone. We recommend readers to read this paper together with Solomon et al. ("On the stratospheric chemistry of midlatitude wildfire smoke", PNAS 2022,https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2117325119). Both studies highlight the importance of wildfires for stratospheric chemistry and the recovery of the ozone layer in a warming climate.