CAMS monitors long-range transport of Siberian wildfire smoke
Since spring, several wildfires in central Russia and Siberia have sent huge quantities of smoke into the atmosphere, which travelled several thousands of kilometres across the Arctic Ocean to Alaska and North-West Canada and eventually the west coast of Greenland.
This long-range movement of smoke was predicted five days in advance by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).
Monitoring the effects of these high-latitude wildfires is of particular interest because they have a strong impact on the composition of the atmosphere in the Arctic area, thus potentially affecting climate change.
For instance, particles of smoke can land on snow and ice, and cause the ice to absorb sunlight that it would otherwise reflect, which contributes to global warming.