Australian Bushfire Emissions Result in Enhanced Polar Stratospheric Ice Clouds

Abstract

Abstract. Extreme bushfire events amplify climate change by emitting greenhouse gases and destroying carbon sinks while causing economic damage through property destruction and even fatalities. One such bushfire occurred in Australia during 2019/2020, injecting large amounts of aerosols and gases into the stratosphere and depleting the ozone layer. While previous studies focused on the drivers behind ozone depletion, the bushfire impact on the polar stratospheric clouds (PSC), a paramount factor in ozone depletion, has not been extensively investigated so far. This study focuses on the effects of bushfire aerosols on the dynamics and stratospheric chemistry related to PSC formation and its pathways. An analysis from Aura's microwave limb sounder revealed enhanced hydrolysis of dinitrogen pentoxide significantly increased nitric acid (HNO₃) in the high-latitude lower stratosphere in early 2020. Using a novel methodology which retrieves formation pathways of PSCs from spaceborne lidar observations, we found that the enhanced HNO₃ condensed on bushfire aerosols, forming 82 % of Liquid Nitric Acid Trihydrate (LNAT), which rapidly converted to 77 % of ice, resulting in an anomalous high areal coverage of ice PSCs. This highlights the primary formation pathways of ice and LNAT and possibly helps us to simulate the PSC formation and denitrification process better in climate models. As tropospheric warming is anticipated to increase the frequency of extreme wildfire events and stratospheric cooling is expected to expand the PSC areal coverage, these findings will contribute significantly to a deeper understanding of the impacts of extreme wildfire events on stratospheric chemistry and PSC dynamics.