The wildfires devastating California & different parts of the western United States are the worst in 18 yrs., with vast amounts of thick smoke affecting huge regions of the North America & even approaching Northern Europe, scientists stated Wed..
The fires, that started in mid-Aug in California(CA) & Colorado(CO), are “significantly extra intense than the 2003-2019 average for the whole nation & the affected states,” as per data from Europe’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).
Oregon & Washington(WA) have also witnessed severe wildfires break out from the starting of Sep, following previous hot, dry & windy circumstances.
Scientists from CAMS, that is part of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, utilize satellite observations to track wildfire activity across the globe. Fire activity this yr. within the United States was “tens to hundreds of times extra intense” than the average from 2003 to 2019 around the nation as a whole, along with in multiple affected states, they say.
“The scale & magnitude of these fires are in a level much higher than in any of the 18 yrs. that our supervising statistics covers, from 2003,” stated Mark Parrington, a Sr. scientist for CAMS.
“A great indicator of smoke thickness is aerosol optical depth (AOD). Over the western US, AOD levels were noticed to approach values of 7 (or) above; to put this into perspective, an AOD measurement of 1 already implies quite hazy circumstances & potentially poverty-stricken air quality.”