Smoke

Wow, has the weather been weird around here this week or what? For those of you who are still in Mill Valley, you know what I mean. Not, sunny, not foggy, but smoky. You may know that this is because of all of the wildfires burning in California (over 1000 the last time I checked). I've experienced this kind of weather before, but it never lasted for more than a day or two. This has been going on for a whole week.


Above is a satellite photo of California taken on June 26th. The little red dots are wildfires. The grey stuff in the middle is smoke which looks like it covers about 1/4 of the state. The white stuff along the left side of the picture is fog.

The word "smog" is a combination of the words "smoke" and "fog". I heard that it was invented by a TV weatherman who used it to describe the haze left by air pollution. He didn't mean an actual combination of smoke and fog, but this week, that's exactly what we have.


You may wonder if smoke like this has any effect on global warming. The answer is no, but there have been times when a catastrophic event on earth did affect the world's climate.

Two such events were the 1883 volcanic eruption of the island of Krakatoa and the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Phillipines.


Krakatoa

The eruption of Krakatoa was the largest ever recorded. It destroyed 2/3 of the island, killed over 32,000 people and could be heard 3000 miles away (that's like being able hear, in Mill Valley, an explosion that took place in Hawaii). The cloud created by the eruption spewed huge amounts of a compound called sulphur dioxide (SO2) into the atmosphere. SO2 reflects sunlight, which meant that less than the normal amount of sunlight was reaching the earth's surface. How much less? Enough to lower the Earth's temperature by 2 degrees farenheight. The explosion affected the climate for 3 years.


Mt Pinatubo

The Mt. Pinatubo eruption wasn't as catclysmic. It only lowered Earth's temperature by .9 degrees (mostly in the Northern Hemisphere) and its effects were only felt for one year.

So, there's your cure for global warming: more volcanic eruptions! Of course, what goes up must come down. SO2 comes down in the form of acid rain....