Smoke from wildfires in Canada has taken to the jetstream and is billowing across several provinces and drifting into the U.S. as well. This natural-color image, taken by the Aqua satellite’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, MODIS, instrument on August 30, 2017, shows copious amounts of smoke billowing out from dozens of wildfires across Canada. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba are all victims of the heavy smoke. All provinces are also culprits in producing the smoke from various wildfires, although British Columbia and Saskatchewan are the biggest contributors. Smoke is also drifting down into the northern states in the U.S. including Washington, Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. The smoke, however, is so abundant that it has traveled as far south as Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and northern Texas.
Canada is a thousand miles away from Texas, but that is not far enough away to avoid the Canadian wildfire smoke which is traveling along jetstreams and bringing degraded air quality to areas hundreds to thousands of miles away. This polluted air contributes to climate change that is felt globally.
In this image actively burning areas, detected by MODIS’s thermal bands, are outlined in red. Clouds are white, and smoke is a gray-tinged white or brown-tinged white. NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz LANCE/EOSDIS MODIS Rapid Response Team, GSFC. Caption by Lynn Jenner