How Wildfire Smoke Can Travel 1000’s of Miles, and The way to Protect Yourself
Róisín Commane, an atmospheric chemist at Columbia Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, speaks with a Weather Channel reporter in front of a smoke-choked Recent York City skyline.
Greater than 400 wildfires burning across Canada have triggered air quality alerts across a big portion of the U.S. In Recent York City, record-setting air pollution bathed the town in an ominous orange haze. Many reported smelling smoke, despite being hundreds of miles away from the fires.
Experts on the Columbia Climate School have been featured widely within the news, using their expertise in meteorology, air pollution, health and disaster response to assist put this unusual event into context. Below, we share a few of their insights and guidance.
How dangerous is it?
“These levels are at the very least 10 times higher than what health guidelines mark because the healthy levels for exposure for particulate matter,” Dan Westervelt, who studies air pollution on the Climate School’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told CNN. “So we’re really seeing just unprecedented amounts of pollution within the Recent York area and the mid-Atlantic typically.”
“How concerned you have to be has rather a lot to do along with your own situation,” Jeff Schlegelmilch, director of the Climate School’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness, told NPR. He went on to say that poor air quality is bad for everybody, however it’s especially dangerous for certain groups, including those with lung and heart disease, the elderly and pregnant people.
Róisín Commane, a Lamont scientist who monitors air quality in NYC and beyond, cautioned that air quality readings could be unreliable at very high pollutant concentrations. “I’m undecided there’s many things that may measure well when the numbers are this high,” she told Gothamist. “But once it’s above a certain quantity, it’s toxic to people. So whether it’s 350 or 355 doesn’t really matter if you could have to breathe it.”
A satellite image captures thick smoke over the eastern U.S. on June 7, 2023. Source: NASA
How can I protect myself and my family members?
Climate School experts underlined the final advice to remain indoors with windows and doors shut if in any respect possible, and avoid strenuous activities.
“Should you’ve got a red alert for air quality, it’s probably not the time to exit and go for that jog or go for that run,” Schlegelmilch told NPR, “since you’re respiration in additional air and also you’re respiration in additional air more deeply.”
Activate an air purifier should you can, Westervelt advised. And should you do must go outside, a very good mask might help out rather a lot, Steve Chillrud, who studies air pollution at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told local news media.
“The advantages are a very good fitting K95 or N95 mask can remove the vast majority of the particulate matter, which is what’s causing the haze,” he said. “The fit is crucial, so even wearing a surgical mask that matches you well might help, but a K95 or N95 mask can work higher.”
How is the smoke traveling up to now?
In an enchanting interview with Curbed, Dan Westervelt details how heat from the wildfires helps to propel smoke particles high up into the atmosphere, where they will then hang around for weeks, hitching a ride on the prevailing winds.
Speaking with the Recent York Times, Westervelt added that a low-pressure system in upper Recent England is creating the right conditions for wind to bring the smoke down the East Coast.
How long will this last?
While Canada struggles to get its record-breaking variety of fires under control, smoke will proceed to enter the atmosphere. Where that smoke travels depends totally on meteorology, including wind patterns and rainfall, which might help to clear the air.
Westervelt told Bloomberg that the smoky haze is prone to remain within the Northeast for the remainder of the week, before blowing out toward the ocean. “I might expect things to begin to get a bit of bit higher as we catch up with to the weekend, however the fires are still burning,” he said. Changing weather patterns may bring “a bit of little bit of relief, however it’s not going to be an overnight switch. It would take a little bit of time for all of the smoke to filter out.”
Thick smoke from Canadian wildfires darkens the sky in Recent York City. Photo taken at 2pm on June 7. Source: Newell Reinvention
Is climate change an element?
Within the CNN interview, Westervelt explained that it could be difficult to say definitively whether climate change has caused a particular event comparable to this outbreak of wildfires. Nonetheless, he added, scientists are little question already investigating this query.
“What we do know,” Westervelt said on CNN, “is that hotter temperatures, drier conditions, worsening droughts, less precipitation — all of those things that are symptoms of climate change — are happening, and people things do worsen wildfires.”
In an interview with ABC7, Radley Horton, a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, goes further in depth into what scientists do and don’t learn about how climate change influences wildfires. Watch the interview below:
Will we see more events like this in the longer term?
“That is near unprecedented” for southern Canada and the Northeast U.S., Horton told ABC7. But events like this may occasionally not remain so exceptional in the longer term, he said: “Now we’re seeing signs that perhaps areas within the Northeast, forests that we expect of as being less vulnerable, actually have gotten more vulnerable with climate change.”
#Globalwarming results in symptoms that make #wildfires worse, increasing #wildfire frequency and amount of area burned, which is fuel for more air quality issues, says @columbiaclimate @LamontEarth climate scientist @d_westy. Via @CNNThisMorning. 📺: https://t.co/JkK0VBLiWR
— Columbia Climate School (@columbiaclimate) June 8, 2023
