Abstract
Biomass burning in Africa provides a prolific source of aerosols that are transported from the source region to distant areas, as far away as South America and Australia. Models have long predicted the primary outflow and transport routes. Over time, field studies have validated the basic production and dynamics that underlie these transport patterns. In more recent years, the advancement of spaceborne active remote-sensing techniques has allowed for more detailed verification of the models and, importantly, verification of the vertical distribution of the aerosols in the transport regions, particularly with respect to westerly transport over the Atlantic Ocean. The Cloud-Aerosol Transport System (CATS) lidar on the International Space Station has detection sensitivity that provides observations that support long-held theories of aerosol transport from the African subcontinent over the remote Indian Ocean and as far downstream as Australia.
 Significance:
 
 Biomass burning in Africa can have impacts as far away as Australia.
 Flow of aerosols from Africa towards Australia has long been postulated by transport models, but has been poorly characterised due to a lack of measurements.
 The CATS instrument on the International Space Station has detection sensitivity that captures aerosol transport from Africa over the Indian Ocean to Australia.
 
 Open data set: 
 https://cats.gsfc.nasa.gov/
Highlights
The African continent is a prolific source of aerosols flowing out over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans
These westerly disturbances peak in the spring months (September–November) and in very dry seasons such as those observed during the SAFARI project in 1992, can direct as much as 90% of aerosol transport into the Indian Ocean.[13]
Low pressure systems propagating across the southern edge of Africa, in tandem with high pressure located near Madagascar, result in flow towards the south and east that transports smoke into the Indian Ocean across 35°E
Summary
In contrast to the Eulerian view of Case 1, over the 8-day period of 11–18 October 2015, CATS captured a Lagrangian view of the evolution and transport of multiple plumes Data captured during this period, displayed, show evolution of multiple dust or aerosol plumes that originate over southern Africa (approximate latitude 25°S) and propagate across the Indian Ocean to the south of Australia. Low pressure systems propagating across the southern edge of Africa, in tandem with high pressure located near Madagascar, result in flow towards the south and east that transports smoke into the Indian Ocean across 35°E During this transport, the smoke is lofted and advected toward Australia in the Figure 6: Case 3, 13–19 September 2016, demonstrating a Lagrangian view of plume transport, showing different passes on subsequent days. In Cases 2 and 3, the trajectories trace back to the east coast of southern Africa (near the southern tip of Madagascar), whereas in Case 1 the trajectories trace to the west coast of southern Africa
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