A new study examines how smoke affects lake environments

 

POSTED ON Jul 02, 2024

 

According to a study from the University of California, Davis, wildfire smoke affected nearly every lake in North America for at least one day per year from 2019 to 2021.

The study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, found that 89% of the lakes in North America experienced smoke for more than 30 days during each of those three years of intense wildfire activity.

Lead author Mary Jade Farruggia, a Ph.D. candidate in the UC Davis Graduate Group in Ecology and the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, stated, “That was surprising, even to us. With this study, we quantified the scope of the smoke problem for the first time. We show that it’s not just a widespread problem, but long-lasting in many places.”

The study introduces a concept the authors call the “lake-smoke day” to serve as a metric for monitoring smoke prevalence at lakes.

It refers to the days a lake is exposed to smoke in any fire season.

A lake-smoke day metric could help establish a baseline to better understand the extent and intensity of events such as 2023’s persistent blanket of wildfire smoke from Canada that reached the Northeastern United States and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe.

The authors established the metric using a hazard-mapping product from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that quantifies smoke density based on satellite imagery and ground-based measurements.

They also analyzed databases of about 1.3 million North American lakes, larger than 25 acres, to learn the prevalence and duration of exposure.

This study is part of a growing, broader effort to examine how smoke affects lake environments. 

The authors worked with the Global Lakes Ecological Observatory Network, or GLEON, to create a working group to share, understand, and communicate these impacts.

Click here to read the study online.