WE-CAN field campaign shows how wildfire smoke changes clouds

Wildfire smoke crosses the United States in September 2017. Credit: NASA

For the western United States, summer is wildfire season and where there is fire, there is smoke. Wildfire smoke includes airborne particles that can act as nuclei for forming individual droplets in clouds. A team of researchers, funded in part by CPO’s Atmospheric Chemistry, Carbon Cycle, and Climate (AC4) program, recently published a study in Geophysical Research Letters showing how these smoke-influenced clouds differ from their clean air counterparts, with complex implications for our weather and climate. They found that clouds were strongly influenced by smoke across the western United States, forming with more, smaller droplets.

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