Probably a little bit of both. Anecdotally, the fires and smoke columns are probably bigger than you realize. This is a pic from some time ago of a 10,000m tall smoke column from a fire barely 24 hours old and less than 100kms away.
I mean, I’m no stranger to wildfires and smoke where i live, it’s just… even when I look at giant clouds covering the sky, my brain says “I mean, that’s big but there’s no way it’s significant-on-a-global-scale big.” But some of those smoke clouds look the be the size of a small state. And the fires themselves. I would’ve thought they’d just be pinpricks of light if anything, not those angry big blotches. I think i just need to recalibrate what “big” means.
It doesn’t help that I live in a large state. When you can drive for 9 hours in a straight line and not cross a state border, nothing seems THAT big, you know?
Damn those all seem huge. Are fires and the resulting smoke a lot bigger than I think, or is the world smaller?
Probably a little bit of both. Anecdotally, the fires and smoke columns are probably bigger than you realize. This is a pic from some time ago of a 10,000m tall smoke column from a fire barely 24 hours old and less than 100kms away.
I mean, I’m no stranger to wildfires and smoke where i live, it’s just… even when I look at giant clouds covering the sky, my brain says “I mean, that’s big but there’s no way it’s significant-on-a-global-scale big.” But some of those smoke clouds look the be the size of a small state. And the fires themselves. I would’ve thought they’d just be pinpricks of light if anything, not those angry big blotches. I think i just need to recalibrate what “big” means.
It doesn’t help that I live in a large state. When you can drive for 9 hours in a straight line and not cross a state border, nothing seems THAT big, you know?