Master thesis at NILU/University of Oslo – Tracking Wildfire Smoke: Combining Space Observations with Atmospheric Transport Models
Are you interested in a Master thesis at UiO ? Check out the following page: Tracking Wildfire Smoke: Combining Space Observations with Atmospheric Transport Models – Department of Geosciences
In 2025, Canada experienced exceptionally intense wildfires, producing massive smoke plumes that were repeatedly transported across the Atlantic and observed over Europe. These long-range transported aerosol layers are of societal concern because they can degrade air quality and affect human health, influence clouds, and perturb the Earth’s radiation budget, thereby impacting climate. An ongoing master’s thesis examines transport pathways and aerosol aging related to the Canadian wildfires. The figure shows the modeled aerosol concentrations (upper two panels) and the satellite-derived aerosol extinction (third panel) and type classification (lowest panel) for a satellite overpass on June 4, 2025.
Exceptional high AOD over Svalbard in Summer 2019: A multi-instrumental approach
In the summer of 2019, the Arctic region registered exceptionally high aerosol optical depth (AOD) values over Svalbard, linked to intense biomass burning and volcanic activity across the Northern Hemisphere. See our recent Preprint EGU Sphere.
Forecasting and analysing wildfire plumes in the European atmosphere, demonstrated by the case of Canadian wildfire plumes in June 2025
Meet Sabine Eckhardt in Warsaw, Poland at the European Lidar Conference 2025, presenting our poster on the wildfire plumes in the European atmosphere in June 2025.
Extreme wildfire in Spain – TROPOMI Aerosol Index 16 August 2025
This summer Spain and Portugal were facing one of its most extreme wildfire seasons in two decades. Heatwaves with temperatures above 40°C and moderate winds were fanning the flames. Above we show an example of the aerosol plume measured by TROPOMI on 16 August 2025. The triangles/squares show the fire location and their intensity.
International “State of the Climate” report: New climate records in 2024
Extreme fire activity
Senior scientist Johannes Kaiser at NILU is one of the contributing scientists. He leads the reports section on vegetation fires.
“In 2024, the global overall trends continued with less fire activity in savannah regions, but more frequent and more intense fire episodes in boreal, forest, and wet land regions. The amount of vegetation burnt in Canada was only second to 2023, and thus extreme for two straight years. South America saw many large fires in the Earth’s largest tropical wetlands in the Pantanal. The Arctic fire season of 2024 was among the five most active fires seasons in the Arctic since 2003. Here in Europe, Portugal and the Balkans were most affected,” he says.
for more details see the the NILU post.
EarthCARE observations of Canadian wildfire smoke spreading over the Northern Hemisphere
The European-Japanese EarthCARE mission was successfully launched on Wednesday 29 May 2024. The EarthCARE satellite is also known under its nickname ‘White Dragon’, embodying the satellite’s appearance, with its white body and solar panel resembling a long tail.
EarthCARE is ESA’s 6th Cloud, Aerosol, Radiation Explorer. It is the largest and most complex of the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Earth Explorer missions. It is as a cooperation between ESA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Using four instruments it will examine the role that clouds and aerosols play in reflecting solar radiation back into space and in trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth’s surface. Thus, the missions will advance our understanding of climate change.
The above Figure shows the EarthCARE swath from 1 June 2025, showing a pyCB over Hudson Bay, Canada. For more interesting results see the ESA article: EarthCARE sees Canadian wildfire smoke spreading over the Northern Hemisphere
Summer in Central Europe: Drought and fire to be expected
Central Europe is heading towards a hot and dry summer, with increased risk for wildfires. Here in Norway, on the other hand, the risk for rain seems to be greater than the risk of forest fires.
See the full NILU post from By: Christine Forsetlund Solbakken, Published: 30.06.2025
Ceilometer at Birkenes is detecting smoke from Canada
The Birkenes observatory in Agder is NILU’s oldest observatory; it has been in operation since 1971. It is one of the longest-running sites in Europe. Since August 2021, NILU is operating a Ceilometer at the site. It shows clouds and aerosols above the station. Below screenshots from 30 May – 15 June 2025, each for a full day and between ground and 8 km altitude. The first wildfire aerosols were seen on 31 May 2025, and after that during many days, see here the daily curtain plots for 11 and 14 June 2025. Note the red/orange signals are clouds – only the fainter blue colors are signs of aerosols.
Arctic and Northern Latitude Peat and Non-peat Wildfire – Poster presentation at ESA Living Planet Symposium
Meet us at the ESA Living Planet Symposium, 23—27 June 2025, Vienna, Austria
Kerstin Stebel, Philipp Schneider, Johannes W. Kaiser, and Margit Aun, Arctic and Northern Latitude Peat and Non-peat Wildfire Aerosols During 2018-2024, A.02.08 – POSTER – Impacts of fire in the Earth system, Wednesday 25.06.2025, 17:45-19:00, X5 – Poster Area – Zone L-M
