Article

Canadian smoke over Germany at Whitsun

Leipzig, 08.06.2025 – Albert Ansmann

Anyone who looked up at the sky last evening may have been surprised that there was no sign of the sun. What was going on? Answer: The aerosol soup above us was extremely thick! No cirrus clouds, no clouds, all aerosol!

If you then look at the TROPOS lidar measurements from 7 June 2025, you will see that there is an incredible amount of Canadian forest fire aerosol drifting over Europe, from 3 km upwards to the tropopause (at an altitude of 10-12 km).

For the experts: The optical thickness at 340 to 500nm was no longer measurable with the photometers from 7 pm local time. The (vertical) AOD was over 2! And along the path to the sun then clearly above 5.... so that the photometer can no longer provide clean data.

ESA's EarthCARE lidar also sees this enormous pollution from the forest fire aerosol right up into the lower stratosphere. The sky over large parts of the northern hemisphere up to the North Pole is currently covered in SMOKE..... And it's likely to stay that way ... if the forest fires in many parts of the northern hemisphere continue over the summer....

It won't affect our health.... but it will have an impact on the climate....
Albert Ansmann