Australian wildfires cause the largest stratospheric warming since Pinatubo and extends the lifetime of the Antarctic ozone hole

Abstract

Global mean lower stratosphere temperatures rose abruptly in January 2020 reaching values not experienced since the early 1990s. Anomalously high lower stratospheric temperatures were recorded for 4 months at highly statistically significant levels. Here, we use a combination of satellite and surface-based remote sensing observations to derive a time-series of stratospheric biomass burning aerosol optical depths originating from intense SouthEastern Australian wildfires and use these aerosol optical depths in a state-of-the-art climate model. We show that the S.E. Australian wildfires are the cause of this lower stratospheric warming. We also investigate the radiatively-driven dynamical response to the observed stratospheric ozone perturbation and find a significant strengthening of the springtime Antarctic polar vortex suggesting that biomass burning aerosols play a significant role in the observed anomalous longevity of the ozone hole in 2020.