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Atmospheric and Oceanic Optics

2019 year, number 1

Traces of Canadian pyrocumulonimbus clouds in the stratosphere over Tomsk in June-July, 1991

V.V. Gerasimov1,2, V.V. Zuev1, E.S. Savelieva1
1Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 634055, Tomsk, 10/3, Academichesky ave
2National Research Tomsk State University, 36, Lenin Avenue, Tomsk, 634050,Russia
Keywords: стратосферный аэрозоль, лидар, Пинатубо, пирокумулятивное облако, крупный лесной пожар, stratospheric aerosol, lidar, Pinatubo, pyrocumulonimbus, massive forest fire

Abstract

We revise the results of lidar measurements of stratospheric aerosol over Tomsk that were made from June 29 to July 14, 1991, and initially interpreted as aerosol layers after the Pinatubo eruption. Using the NOAA HYSPLIT trajectory model, we show that aerosol layers detected at altitudes of 12 and 14.2 km on June 29 and July 11, respectively, were the stratospheric smoke plume from massive forest fires occurred in Quebec, Canada, in June 1991. Biomass burning products reached the stratosphere via convective ascent within a pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) cloud that was detected at 100 km west of Baie-Comeau (Quebec, Canada) on June 19. Aerosol layers observed at altitudes between 11 and 16.5 km on July 8, 9, and 14 represented superpositions of the smoke plume from the Quebec pyroCb and the first traces of the Pinatubo eruption.