News Climate

Australian fires in 2019–2020 had even more global reach than previously thought

Blazes dumped a vast amount of CO2 into the air and triggered faraway algae blooms in the ocean

smoke billow from burning trees

Smoke rises from burning trees near the town of Nowra, in Australia’s New South Wales, on December 31, 2019. New research links smoke and ash from the wildfires that raged across southeastern Australia from October 2019 to February 2020 to large blooms of marine algae far to the east in the Southern Ocean.

SAEED KHAN/AFP via Getty Images

By Carolyn Gramling

- More than 2 years ago

The severe, devastating wildfires that raged across southeastern Australia in late 2019 and early 2020 packed a powerful punch that extended far beyond the country, two new studies find.