Where there’s smoke, there’s not necessarily fire.
Wildfire smoke, occasionally traveling from hundreds of miles away, reached almost all lakes in North America for at least one day per year between 2019 and 2021, as per a research study conducted at the University of California, Davis.
Even more notably, the study, which was released in the journal Global Change Biology, revealed that 89% of the lakes in Nor
In the past three years, North America has experienced smoke for over 30 days due to intense wildfire activity. Lead author Mary Jade Farruggia, a Ph.D. candidate at UC Davis, was surprised by this finding. The study quantified the extent of the smoke problem for the first time, showing that it is not only widespread but also long-lasting in many areas.
The study introduces the concept of a “lake-smoke day” as a metric for tracking the impacts of prolonged smoke exposure.The monitoring of smoke prevalence at lakes involves tracking the number of days that a lake is affected by smoke during a fire season. This metric could provide valuable information about the impact of events like the 2023 wildfire smoke from Canada that extended to the Northeastern United States and even crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe. The authors of the study developed this metric using a hazard mapping product from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, which evaluates smoke density using satellite imagery and ground-based data.Researchers conducted measurements and analyzed databases of approximately 1.3 million North American lakes larger than 25 acres to understand the extent and duration of exposure. According to senior author Steven Sadro, a UC Davis limnologist and associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, smoke is pervasive and widespread. The researchers aim to quantify the prevalence of smoke, which has been a consistent and healthy presence on the landscape for millions of years.The increase in frequency and intensity of devastating wildfires in recent years is unprecedented when compared to previous decades. As a result, the effects of smoke on natural ecosystems have not been thoroughly researched.
This research is part of a larger effort to explore the impact of smoke on lake environments. The authors collaborated with the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network, also known as GLEON, to establish a working group dedicated to sharing, understanding, and communicating these effects.
They examined both documented and potential consequences of smoke on lakes, including how it can modify the quantity and makeup of solar radiation that reaches lakes. Additionally, smoke and ash can also change the distribution of nutrients and chemicals in the water.The impacts of smoke on lakes are not fully understood and can vary significantly from one lake to another, affecting food webs, lake ecology, and potentially the future of these systems. Quantifying the extent of the problem is the first step in addressing this global concern, which goes beyond areas impacted by wildfires. This research, funded mostly by the National Science Foundation, involved a large team of 22 authors from diverse disciplines.Chemistry and atmospheric science to geography and ecology.
