Human-caused fires limit convection in tropical Africa: First temporal observations and attribution

It is well established that smoke particles modify clouds, which in turn affects climate. However, no study has quantified the temporal dynamics of aerosol-cloud interactions with direct observations. Here for the first time, we use temporally offset satellite observations from northern Africa between 2006 and 2010 to quantitatively measure the effect of fire aerosols on convective cloud dynamics. We attribute a reduction in cloud fraction during periods of high aerosol optical depths to a smoke-driven inhibition of convection. We find that higher smoke burdens limit upward vertical motion, increase surface pressure, and increase low-level divergence—meteorological indicators of convective suppression. These results are corroborated by climate simulations that show a smoke-driven increase in regionally averaged shortwave tropospheric heating and decrease in convective precipitation during the fire season. Our results suggest that in tropical regions, anthropogenic fire initiates a positive feedback loop where increased aerosol emissions limit convection, dry the surface, and enable increased fire activity via human ignition.