of intense heat, parched vegetation and dry conditions has turned the 55,000-acre blaze in the Klamath National Forest into its own force of nature.
The troposphere is where weather happens, and where eye-searing clouds of smoke and soot circulate even from moderately sized fires. But when a smoke column such as those emanating from the McKinney fire shoots through that layer and enters the stratosphere — the higher, more stable layer above — it creates havoc with local weather and seeds the Earth’s atmosphere with aerosol pollutants whose consequence science is still sorting out.
In four of the geographical regions they examined, maximum smoke plume height increased by an average of 320 feet per year. The most pronounced growth of all was in California’s Sierra Nevada, where maximum plume height ballooned by an average of 750 feet in each year of their study.