Please join CPAESS for a virtual seminar talk with Yaowei Li, NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow
WHEN: Wednesday, May 20, 2026 at 11:00am MT (Virtual)
WATCH LIVE ONLINE
TITLE: From Regional to Global: The Far-Reaching Impacts of Wildfires on the Atmosphere and Climate
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SUMMARY: Wildfires are becoming increasingly frequent and intense in a warming climate, reversing decades of air quality improvements, as seen in the 2025 Los Angeles Fires and many other record-breaking events worldwide. Crucially, what burns locally doesn't stay local-wildfire smoke often rises, travels, and affects the atmosphere and climate far beyond its source. I will share new insights into the far-reaching impacts of wildfire smoke based on aircraft measurements, satellite observations, and modeling. At the regional scale, I will present first-of-its-kind aircraft sampling of wildfire smoke at ~14.5 km altitude, revealing unexpectedly large aerosol particles that enhance outgoing radiation by ~35%, challenging conventional model assumptions. Next, I will show how high-altitude wildfire smoke perturbs Earth's energy balance and global temperatures, with the 2019/20 Australian wildfires leaving detectable climate fingerprints in the atmosphere comparable to major volcanic eruptions, and causing the strongest stratospheric warming of this century.
Dr. Yaowei Li is a NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow co-hosted at MITand Caltech, as well as a Caltech Foster and Coco Stanback PostdoctoralScholar. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering from HarvardUniversity and a B.S. in Environmental Science from Peking University. Hisresearch examines how atmospheric aerosols affect air quality and climate, witha focus on wildfire and volcanic emissions. He has developed and deployed instrumentson aircraft, drones, ground stations, and in laboratory settings to measureaerosols and gas pollutants from the surface to the stratosphere, integratingthese measurements with models to study urban air pollution and aerosol-climateinteractions. His ongoing work combines satelliteremote sensing and atmospheric modeling to study the long-term effects ofwildfire aerosols in the global atmosphere.Dr. Li serves as Co-PI for aerosol instruments on NASA and NOAAhigh-altitude aircraft missions and isa member of the AMS Middle Atmosphere Committee and the AGU AtmosphericSciences Early Career Committee.
For more information, visit the CPAESS Discovery Seminars page
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Alex Meyer
Graphic Artist II, CPAESS
UCAR, UCP and NSF NCAR
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