OMPS LP Observations of the 2019-2020 Australian Fires

Abstract:

The Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite Limb Profiler (OMPS‐LP) instrument is designed to provide high vertical resolution ozone and aerosol profiles from measurements of the scattered solar radiation in the 290-1000 nm spectral range. It collected its first Earth limb measurement on January 10, 2012 and continues to provide daily global measurements of ozone and aerosol profiles from the cloud top up to 60 km and 40 km respectively. The relatively high vertical and spatial sampling allow detection and tracking of sporadic events when aerosol particles are injected into the stratosphere, such as volcanic eruptions or PyroCb events. The newly release OMPS LP V2.0 now produces aerosol extinction profiles at 510, 600, 674, 745, 869, and 997 nm wavelengths. The longer wavelength in particular exhibit significant improvements in the OMPS LP retrieval performance in the Southern Hemisphere and at lower altitudes.

In this presentation, we will discuss OMPS LP measurements of the Australian fires during 2020, which injected unprecedented amount of smoke in the stratosphere that easily surpassed the previous record, the 2017 Pacific Northwest PyroCb. The OMPS LP aerosol measurements first detected the initial injection on January 1, 2020 at 15 km, well above the tropopause, and tracked the temporal and spatial evolution of the aerosol plume in the Southern Hemisphere during the several months following the fires. It also tracked the rapid diabatic ascent of an isolated and coherent plume that reached 35 km over two and a half months. We will also show that the lifetime and aerosol loading of this event are comparable to those of a moderate volcanic eruption.