Violent pyro-convective storm devastates Australia's capital and pollutes the stratosphere
Abstract
Headline-making firestorms in southeast Australia in 2003, responsible for at least 500 destroyed buildings and four lost lives, culminated with pyro-cumulonimbus (pyroCb) ``eruptions'' that ravaged Canberra on 18 January. Here we reveal that in their 3-hour lifetime, the Canberra pyroCbs also produced a stratospheric smoke injection that perturbed the hemispheric background analogous to the theorized ``nuclear winter.'' We use an unprecedented array of data to analyze the Canberra pyroCbs' distinctive stratospheric impact, microphysics, energetics, and surface manifestations-including suppressed precipitation, an F2 tornado, and black hail.
- Publication:
-
Geophysical Research Letters
- Pub Date:
- March 2006
- DOI:
- 10.1029/2005GL025161
- Bibcode:
- 2006GeoRL..33.5815F
- Keywords:
-
- Global Change: Atmosphere (0315;
- 0325);
- Atmospheric Processes: Clouds and aerosols;
- Atmospheric Processes: Convective processes;
- Atmospheric Processes: Remote sensing;
- Atmospheric Processes: Stratosphere/troposphere interactions