Satellite photography and UV aerosol index showing smoke from the Australia bushfires being transported across the Atlantic Ocean from 27 December 2019 to 8 Kanuary 2020. Graphic: Colin Seftor / NASA
Satellite photography and UV aerosol index showing smoke from the Australia bushfires being transported across the Atlantic Ocean from 27 December 2019 to 8 Kanuary 2020. Graphic: Colin Seftor / NASA

14 January 2020 (BBC News) – Smoke from the massive bushfires in Australia will soon circle the Earth back to the nation, says NASA.

Massive infernos have raged along the nation’s east coast for months, pushing smoke across the Pacific.

NASA said plumes from blazes around New Year’s Day had crossed South America, turning skies there hazy, and moved “halfway around Earth” by 8 January 2020.

“The smoke is expected to make at least one full circuit around the globe,” the US space agency said.

Hundreds of bushfires have burnt across Australia, killing at least 28 people and destroying more than 2,000 homes.

The unprecedented scale and intensity of the fires has been exacerbated by climate change, experts say.

How has the smoke travelled around the world?

This animation shows RGB color images from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite for 31 December 2019 through 5 January 2020. A plume of brown smoke extends from the southeastern coast of Australia, over the Tasman Sea and beyond into the Pacific Ocean. The overlaid vertical cross sections show CALIPSO lidar observations for these same days. The bright colors indicate the presence of small particles (aerosols) and the white color indicates clouds. Visible in each of the cross sections near 40 degrees south is a thick layer of smoke from the fires at altitudes above 9 miles (14.5 km). The dark shading below these layers is due to the absence of lidar signals below the opaque smoke layers. These layers contain very small particles and have optical properties similar to smoke. The sequence of CALIPSO and MODIS tracks in the animation indicates the continued transport of the smoke layer to the east. As of 5 January 2020, smoke was detected more than 4,000 miles from the source. Video: Roman Kowch / NASA Langley

Nasa said recent blazes had been so big they had produced an “unusually large” number of pyrocumulonimbus events – or fire-generated thunderstorms.

These had sent smoke soaring into the stratosphere, with some recorded as high as 17.7km (11 miles).

“Once in the stratosphere, the smoke can travel thousands of miles from its source, affecting atmospheric conditions globally,” NASA said. [more]

Australia fires: Smoke to make ‘full circuit’ around globe, Nasa says