Summit County Citizens Voice

A new U.S. Forest Service research paper outlines how wildfires can affect climate. Photo courtesy NOAA.

Smoke particles can cool ground temperatures and suppress cloud formation

By Summit Voice

SUMMIT COUNTY — Along with resulting in huge on-the-ground disturbance, wildfires also have an impact in the atmosphere. With wildfires expected to increase in a warming world, U.S. Forest Service researchers recently set out to document what some of those effects might be with a synthesis of recent research, focusing on the effect of emissions from wildfires on long-term atmospheric conditions.

“While research has historically focused on fire-weather interactions, there is increasing attention paid to fire-climate interactions,” said Yongqiang Liu, lead author and team leader with the SRS Center for Forest Disturbance Science. “Weather, the day-to-day state of the atmosphere in a region, influences individual fires within a fire season. In contrast, when we talk about fire climate, we’re looking at the statistics of weather over a certain period. Fire climate sets atmospheric conditions for fire activity in longer time frames and larger geographic scales,” Liu said.

Key findings included:

• The radiative forcing of smoke particles can generate significant regional climate effects, leading to lower temperatures at the ground surface.
• Smoke particles mostly suppress cloud formation and precipitation. Fire events could lead to more droughts.
• Black carbon, essentially the fine particles of carbon that color smoke, plays different roles in affecting climate. In the middle and lower atmosphere, its presence could lead to a more stable atmosphere. Black carbon plays a special role in the snow-climate feedback loop, accelerating snow melting. Read more »

Filed under: climate and weather, Environment, wildfires | Tagged: Atmosphere of Earth, climate, global warming, Radiative forcing, United States Forest Service, Wildfires | 1 Comment »