Work

Self‐Lofting Drives Tropospheric and Stratospheric Transport of Australian Wildfire Smoke to Antarctic Ice

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The 2019–2020 Australian New Year (ANY) wildfires injected vast amounts of aerosols and trace gases into the atmosphere. Previous studies focused on pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) activities that inject smoke directly into the upper troposphere. Our study shows that extensive aerosol plumes emitted into the lower troposphere during ANY wildfires self‐loft to the middle and upper troposphere. Model simulations show the observed tropospheric plume is best reproduced when emissions in current inventories are scaled by a factor of 3 and injected at 3 km. Self‐lofting nearly doubles tropospheric wildfire smoke lifetime from 6 to 11 days. Both self‐lofted tropospheric and pyroCb smoke were transported to Antarctica. Model results show that the ANY wildfire led to ∼72 tonnes of accumulated black carbon (BC) deposition over Antarctica, roughly three times the 2020 level without ANY, underscoring significant cryospheric impacts.

Source: Geophysical Research Letters

DOI: 10.1029/2025gl120904