SAGE III and INSPYRE Assess PyroCb‑Driven Stratospheric Smoke Injection from 2026 Wildfires
Summertime in the northern mid-latitudes all too often means large scale wildfires, and 2026 is no exception to that cycle with huge fires burning in Canada and the western US since early-July and recently in western Europe. Smoke from the wildfires in Canada was transported 1000s of miles exclusively in the troposphere to the US […] The post SAGE III and INSPYRE Assess PyroCb‑Driven…
New Earth Venture Sub-orbital mission INjected Smoke and PYRocumulonimbus Experiment (INSPYRE) aims to investigate the potential for increased wildfire size and intensity to boost pyroCb-driven smoke injection into the stratosphere, thereby altering Earth's radiative balance. The mission will rely on data from the SAGE III/ISS satellite to establish a baseline for stratospheric aerosol loading and its spectral absorption properties at the onset of the 2026 Northern Hemisphere Summer.
Notable examples of such smoke injection have been observed in the past, such as the Pacific Northwest fires in 2017, which significantly increased aerosol content. A comparison of stratospheric aerosol loading before and after the 2017 fires highlights the potential for dramatic changes in aerosol concentration following extreme wildfires.
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