Above a fierce fire, scorching air and smoke rise in a strong column, and as the air cools water vapor condenses into cloud. The condensation releases that accelerates the rise further. How far up can that go?
All the way into . If the atmosphere suits, forms: a storm cloud fed by the fire, which produces ice, winds and lightning and sometimes lifts smoke into the stratosphere. Up there the smoke can stay for months and spread around the world.
Above a fierce fire, scorching air and smoke rise in a strong column, and that is still not a storm.
What turns it into one is water. As the air cools on the way up, the water vapor condenses and releases heat that accelerates the rise further, so a loop forms that feeds itself and no longer depends on the fire alone.
If the atmosphere suits, a storm cloud fed by the fire forms: it produces ice, winds and lightning, and that lightning can start new fires at a distance.
Sometimes it lifts smoke as far as the stratosphere, where there is almost no vertical mixing and no rain, so the smoke stays for months and spreads around the world. is what established that, from satellites down to particles sampled by aircraft. Only strong fires under particular atmospheric conditions create a cloud like this, and not every smoke cloud develops lightning.
wat. A pyrocumulonimbus is a storm cloud the fire feeds, and it can lift smoke as far as the stratosphere.
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A local fire can create weather of its own and affect the atmosphere at enormous distances.
How do we know?
Multi-instrument tracking followed it: satellites, radar and lightning sensors tracked the height of the columns and the movement of the smoke, and aircraft measured particles after it reached the stratosphere.
What is still unknown
Only strong fires under particular atmospheric conditions create a cloud like this, and not every smoke cloud develops lightning.
Learn something?
Where to next
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