PyroCb in Russia

On 26 August a pyroCb formed around 59 N 127 E. Himawari-8 detected the smoke plume and clouds around the fires, as well as the fire hot spots. Starting at 05:30 UTC on August 26, the animation below shows visible (.64 μm) on the left and shortwave IR (3.9 μm) on the right (click image to play animation). In the shortwave IR images the darker black to red pixels indicate very hot IR brightness temperatures exhibited by the fire source region.

Himawari-8 0.64 μm visible (left) and 3.9 μm shortwave IR (right) images (click to play animation)

Himawari-8 10.4 μm IR channel imagery the minimum cloud-top IR brightness temperatures could be found. The animation below, starting at 05:30 UTC on 25 August, shows that the pyroCb reached around -45.6 ºC (lime green color enhancement) at 08:30 UTC.

Himawari-8 10.4 μm IR images (click to play animation)

To further investigate the transport of smoke from this fire CALIPSO was used. This LIDAR shows the height of the clouds from the wildfire. The first image below is the 532nm Total Attenuated Backscatter plot on 26 August from 05:15 UTC to 05:37 UTC, this is just before the pyroCb formed. The smoke from this fire can be seen around 55 N indicated by white color. The second image is 1064 nm Total Attenuated Backscatter plot, the smoke on this plot is indicated by a white color. The third image is the Depolarization image the smoke is indicated by a red color. The fourth image is the Attenuated Ratio plot between 1064 nm and 532 nm. The smoke is indicated by the magenta pixels. The fifth image is the Vertical Feature Mask. This plot shows the different features that are in the atmosphere, the smoke is attributed as a cloud on this plot and is indicated by a light blue color. The last image shows the subtype of the aerosols that have been detected by the LIDAR. This shows that the aerosols that the LIDAR has detected are smoke (indicated by the black pixels) around 55 N.