A numerical model of aerosol scavenging. Part 2, Simulation of a large city fire

Using a three-dimensional numerical cloud/smoke-plume model, we have simulated the burning of a large, mid-latitude city following a nuclear exchange. The model includes 18 dynamic and microphysical equations that predict the fire-driven airflow, cloud processes, and smoke-cloud interactions. In the simulation, the intense heating from the burning city produces a firestorm with updraft velocities exceeding 60 m/s. Within 15 minutes of ignition, the smoke plume penetrates the tropopause. The updraft triggers a cumulonimbus cloud that produces significant quantities of ice, snow, and hail. These solid hydrometeors, as well as cloud droplets and rain, interact with the smoke particles from the fire. At the end of the one-hour simulation, over 20% of the smoke is in slowly falling snowflakes. If the snow reaches the ground before the flakes completely sublimate (or melt and then evaporate), then only approximately 50% of the smoke will survive the scavenging processes and remain in the atmosphere to affect the global climate.