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Forest Fires in eastern Europe 2010

Dispersion of smoke over Europe

Episode: Wed 11 Aug 00:00 UTC - Wed 22 Aug 23:00 UTC

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These movies illustrate the dispersion of Particulate Matter (PM10 , aerosol particles of a diameter of 10 microns or less) over Europe at the surface and 2 km height. The location of the fires is taken from MODIS-RAPID-FIRE of NASA and, in combination with a global vegetation database, the composition of the emissions is simulated with the EURAD-Fire-Model. The fire emissions are based on a rough estimate of the area currently burning. Furthermore, it is assumed that these areas keep burning for the whole forecast period. Thus, the quantitative values (i.e. the absolute concentrations) have very large uncertainties. The films displayed are concatenated forecasts.

These simulations are produced at the Rhenish Institute for Environmental Research (RIU) in cooperation with Research Centre Jülich.

Elmar Friese1, Lars Nieradzik1,2 und Hendrik Elbern1,2
1 Rheinisches Institut für Umweltforschung an der Universität zu Köln
2 ICG-2 Forschungszentrum Jülich