Clouds of smoke from Canada have reached Europe
The plume of smoke from wildfires in North America has reached European skies. It should not affect air quality.
Residents of Montreal can no longer use swimming pools, paddling pools and outdoor sports facilities, which have had to close.
AFP/ANDREJ IVANOV
Canada is sick of forest fires and their clouds of smoke. While several cities are struggling with intense fires, Montreal was covered this Sunday with a veil of acrid smoke.
There were so many fine particles in Quebec’s main city that the megalopolis was ranked the city with the worst air quality in the world by IQAir, a Swiss company specializing in the study of air pollutants. The situation is such that masks have had to make a comeback on the faces of Canadians.
Although located thousands of kilometers from Canada, do we have reason to fear that this smoke will reach the European sky? An Internet user, presenting himself as a specialist in agroclimatology, sounded the alert this Sunday, June 25.
“A monstrous cloud of ash from Canadian forests is crossing the Atlantic,” Serge Zaka wrote in a tweet. I’m used to crazy stuff, but I’m amazed by its density. It is perfectly visible from space! It should reach us in a few hours.”
“A monstrous cloud”
Asked by AFP, the European observatory Copernicus confirmed that the smoke from the unprecedented fires in Canada reached western Europe on Monday. But the good news is that the fine particles it contains circulate several kilometers above sea level. It is therefore “unlikely”, according to the observatory, that they will have an impact on air quality in Europe.
“The plume of smoke reaches the Iberian Peninsula as well as Ireland and the United Kingdom, and will eventually cross France, the Benelux countries, Germany before continuing further east,” said Mark Parrington on Monday. , scientist at the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).
“Our forecasts”, established from satellite observations, “show high values of aerosol concentrations […] across the Atlantic, but mainly at very high altitudes and it is unlikely to have an impact on air quality in Europe,” he added.
High concentrations of aerosols
These aerosols designate the fine particles suspended in this fire smoke, made up in particular of carbon monoxide, a “product of incomplete combustion” whose “atmospheric lifespan of approximately one month” makes it a “very good tracer of transport of the fumes”, underlined the scientist.
The blow is hard in Canada. Montreal’s swimming pools, paddling pools and outdoor sports facilities have been asked to remain closed.
Quebec alone is currently facing 81 active forest fires, 27 of which are considered out of control. Dry weather and high temperatures favored the progression of several outbreaks this weekend.
The importance of the smoke makes the interventions of air tankers and helicopters particularly difficult. And nothing seems to limit the travel of smoke across borders.
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