This movie displays the extraordinary amount of smoke injected into the atmosphere from the Australian fires and its subsequent eastward dispersal observed by CALIPSO and MODIS over the past few days. The underlying RGB color image (courtesy of NASA Worldview) is from the Aqua/MODIS instrument for January 2, 2020, which shows a plume of brown smoke extending from the southeastern coast of Australia, over the Tasman Sea and beyond into the Pacific Ocean. The overlaid vertical cross sections show CALIPSO lidar profile observations along one of its orbits on three successive days (December 31, 2019 – January 2, 2020). The bright colors indicate the presence of small particles (aerosols) and the white color indicates clouds. Visible in each of the cross sections near 35o S is a thick layer of smoke from the fires at altitudes above 9 miles (14.5 km). The dark shading below these layers is due to the absence of lidar signals below the opaque smoke layers. These layers contain very small particles and have optical properties similar to smoke.

The sequence of CALIPSO tracks that are featured in the movie indicates the continued transport of the smoke layer to the east. We anticipate that the plume will continue its movement over the next days, and the CALIPSO team will continue to monitor its progression.

Credit: NASA's Langley Research Center

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