At the end of the Persian Gulf War in the spring of 1991, 732 oil wells were set ablaze in Kuwait. Approximately 550 wells were still burning in May and June, when a group of scientists began to study the properties and climatic impact of the dense smoke that rose from them.
__________________
Significant environmental pollution and changes in the regional weather resulted from the fires. Air temperatures below the plumes were reported to be about 7C lower than in adjacent areas without smoke. Smoke plumes covered tens of thousands of square kilometers, contributing to Bahrain experiencing that year its coldest May in 35 years. Average temperatures were about 4┬░C lower than normal. Also, the oil well fires produced carbon dioxide at an estimated level of about 1.5% of the global annual production.
This illustrates cooling of the region below the smoke due to reflection of solar radiation by aerosol particles in the smoke plume. Instruments such as the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) will provide observations of fires and their smoke on a global scale.
In the image at the right, heavy smoke plumes can be seen moving from the fires in the center toward the bottom right.
