Thirteen years later, history seems to be repeating itself. A fire at the same sulfur facility in Iraq is emitting tremendous quantities of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Once again, this group of scientists is closely watching the events in real time\u2014only this time they have a more capable set of satellite instruments at their disposal.<\/p>\n
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer<\/a> (MODIS) on NASA\u2019s Terra and Aqua satellites first detected the heat signature of the fire at Al-Mishraq on October 20, 2016. By the next day, a plume of white smoke was streaming from the facility. Meanwhile, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument<\/a> on Aura and the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite<\/a> (OMPS) on Suomi NPP<\/a> began making observations of a large sulfur dioxide plume spreading across northern and central Iraq. Initially, OMI detected sulfur dioxide in the planetary boundary layer<\/a> and lower troposphere, the lowest parts of the atmosphere. Over the next few days, the plume responded to shifting winds and reached higher into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the first few days, the fire did not appear to be particularly energetic and our preliminary observations suggest that much of the sulfur dioxide remained in the boundary layer and the lower troposphere, which accentuates the impact on air quality and health,\u201d said Simon Carn<\/a>, an atmospheric scientist at Michigan Tech. \u201dMore recently, sulfur dioxide has been lofted to higher altitudes<\/a> where it may undergo long-range transport.\u201d In high concentrations, sulfur dioxide can impair breathing and even be life threatening. According to news reports<\/a>, two people have died after breathing sulfur fumes, and up to 1,000 people have been treated for breathing problems.<\/p>\n The map above shows the extent of the plume within the planetary boundary layer as observed by OMI on October 24, 2016. The natural-color image was captured by MODIS on October 22, 2016. The plume from the Al-Mishraq sulfur plant appears white-gray because it is rich with sulfate aerosols<\/a> and droplets of sulfuric acid, which reflect light. Smoke plumes from the Qayyarah oil field<\/a> are black because they are rich with black carbon<\/a> and other aerosols that absorb light.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter a month of burning, the 2003 fire had released roughly 600 kilotons of sulfur dioxide\u2014so much that it was the largest non-volcanic release of sulfur dioxide we had ever observed with satellites,\u201d said Nikolay Krotkov<\/a>, an atmospheric scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center. \u201cHopefully, the current fire will be controlled well before emissions reach that level.\u201d<\/p>\n Already, sulfur dioxide emissions from the fire have been significant. If the sulfur dioxide were coming from a volcano rather than a fire, it would already be among the largest eruptions of 2016, Carn noted in a tweet<\/a> on October 25, 2016.<\/p>\n