Persistent Stratospheric Warming Due to 2019–2020 Australian Wildfire Smoke

Abstract Australian wildfires burning from December 2019 to January 2020 injected approximately 0.9 Tg of smoke into the stratosphere; this is the largest amount observed in the satellite era. A comparison of numerical simulations to satellite observations of the plume rise suggests that the smoke mass contained 2.5% black carbon. Model calculations project a 1 K warming in the stratosphere of the Southern Hemisphere midlatitudes for more than 6 months following the injection of black‐carbon containing smoke. The 2020 average global mean clear sky effective radiative forcing at top of atmosphere is estimated to be −0.03 W m −2 with a surface value of −0.32 W m −2 . Assuming that smoke particles coat with sulfuric acid in the stratosphere and have similar heterogeneous reaction rates as sulfate aerosol, we estimate a smoke‐induced chemical decrease in total column ozone of 10–20 Dobson units from August to December in mid‐high southern latitudes.