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Gil Aegerter / msnbc.com
The sunset in Seattle, Wash., on Sunday drew this crowd at Gasworks Park.
The Pacific Northwest and Canada's British Columbia can thank Russia for some fantastic sunsets in recent days. Smoke from several dozen wildfires in Siberia has been wafting over the Pacific, turning the skies a brilliant red and orange at dusk. The downside has been some rather hazy daylight at times.
"It isn’t uncommon for smoke from large wildfires in Siberia to be lofted high enough into the atmosphere that winds push plumes of it across the Pacific Ocean to North America," NASA noted on its Earth Observatory website while showing a satellite view of the smoke.
In Seattle, University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass tipped off followers of his blog that the smoke would produce some red sunsets along the coast and northwest parts of the state.
But the smoke has also meant some haze, especially farther north in British Columbia, Claire Martin, a meteorologist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., said on the CBC website.
"It's looping below the Aleutians and then back to Vancouver," Martin said of the smoke.
NASA last month reported its scientists were tracking the smoke now that wildfire season has started in Russia and other parts of Asia.
"The smoke plumes were lofted up to at least 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the intense heat of the fires," NASA scientist Colin Seftor stated of an event in early June. "At that point the smoke got picked up by higher level winds."
"Not only smoke and dust can get carried long distance," he added. "Pollutants, and even disease-carrying spores can be carried by the prevailing winds."
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Leave a Comment:
That's odd. According to some commenting on US wildfires the siver bullet for our problem is to buy giant Russian tankers that can dump thousands of gallons on a fire.
Cue the Palin jokes.. what? Not yet?
I started those fires from my back porch Joe. ; ]
Dog on it in it and around it. I need a bowl of aqua dontchaknow ; ].
Cheers
Gorgeous!
oh god. this so much more funny than 90% of most ppl will ever know.
Pollutants, and even disease-carrying spores can be carried by the prevailing winds.
Not only we are getting the debris from the Tsunami in Japan, we are getting also the junk from the Sberian fires. How lucky we are!
However, we are still denying global climate in this country..We can't get the message.
Are we sure this isn't from the nuclear fallout after what happened at the Fukushima plant?
The world is drying out and burning up........We have a Republican party that denies all evidence of global warming no matter what the vast majority of scientists say..........Nothing will change till the Republican party is little more than a memory.
You're a complete idiot. The end of our two-party system would result in a Socialist or Communist dictatorship with it's accompanying human atrocities, mass poverty, and possible revolution.
A return to consitutional government and rule of law is the only thing that can save our nation now; those currently in power hope to get the US in a stranglehold it can't break & bring their Socialist schemes to fruition after the next election. Look up the word "traitor" in Webster's. .
OMG the Commies are coming!!! RUUUNNN!!!!! It's the 1950's all over again!!
Repubs make money off the status quo...Coal/oil fuels........why change? Greed is number one in their play book. AS LONG AS TEABAGGERS BELIEVE THE WORLD IS FLAT, REPUBS WILL MAKE MONEY.
What does global warming or republicans have to do with wildfires in Siberia? Wildfires happen, they always have and always will, long before politics there were wildfires, long before the industrial revolution there were wildfires. I not saying that global warming doesn't exist or that it isn't being caused by human activity, I'm just asking what does this have to do with wildfires in Siberia.
frank klepeiss
Only you can turn wildfires into a political debate. Also, if the Republicans are that bad, what good have the democrats done?? They both have run this country and successfully pushed it to the ground!!
Both parties are kinda bad.
All I can say, you only deserve what you earn. Someone who does less, should have less.
Just how many large wildfires do we have going on around the world? How many extreme floods?
bingo baby MORPHINE CARNIVAL city banned, rereg of multiple accounter Morphine Carnival/l/.
No political party, branch of science, or religion will be able to stop what's to come.
Failing to prepare is equal to preparing to fail. So get ready, the party is just starting.
Right on, brother; people are in for a world of hurt in their future, I'm sure.
Yepper, me be sitting here listening to Leon Russel singing Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Agonna Fall"
Those like me who were doing heavy psychedelics in the 60's have seen all this coming for a long time. Just weren't sure how it was going to come down.
Well it's only fair since we shared some ash with them after Mt St.Helens blew.
Didn't the Brant's cormorants and Bald Eagles inhale all of that ???
Prepare? Not likely! Fires? Floods? Pestilence?
Here! Google, "1910 fires". Wasn't any fossil fuel footprint in them days. No cars!
And finally, for the Big Answer, Google "George Carlin The Big Electron". The 8 minute version is the best. Has Russian subtitles so you can send it to your buds in Russia, Ukraine etc.
Bye!
Was in Idaho last evening. Georgous. As hot pink as it could be.
Rocky it was just Palin still in her afterglow for getting to run as VP..............
Starsail . . Just GET OVER Palin and those female politicians YOU HECKLE!!
IF You HAD HALF AS MUCH SACK AS THEM you would do something productive with your life rather than HECKLE these ladies on chat boards. THANK GOD NO ONE IS PAYING YOU FOR THAT!!!!
Why don't you go get a real job . . Oh that's right . . You said you were fired ( age discrimination you allege, correct?? LOL !!!)
Age discrimination is a very real real thing. I started experiencing it at age 45. I have worked as a temp employee most of my life and that's about when I started having difficulty finding jobs.
The Russians get credit for pretty sunsets while we get the blame for global warming! LOL
Atomic & hydrogen bombs make for pretty sunsets too, and they last a hell of a lot longer! God help us if Iran gets the bomb; they already have the missiles to deliver one here!
NORM!................Cliff was pontificating on what all the damage was done with all the nuke and hydrogen bombs going off and being tested all these years. Add them all up and......?
Well then if we nuke Russia and china ..we should have wonderful sunrises and sun sets...throw in iran iraq and Syria Cuba well its gonna be a great day for fishing..
you're a moron, aren't you?
I'm sure he was joking
oh so that's what that was
Why weren't radioactive particles mentioned in the article?
And NOT coincidentally, this is why radiation from Fukushima is continuing to invisibly rain down on Seattle.... and the whole west coast including Alaska and Canada, and even much further inland.....
I live here in Seattle and I've measured this "radiation rain" you speak of via swipe tests in a scintillation counter and the fact is it's within the margin of error for background measurement. Maybe it's higher on the coast, I don't know but I do know that your wrong about Seattle.
I have BS in Science and one of the things I learned is that there many so called scientists that make a living on grant money pursuing stupid research projects justifying themselves by deliberately skewing the results of data or just flat out lying about and inventing their research data. Many claim to be environmentalists claiming to protect mother earth when all they are really doing is lining their pockets all the while accusing hard working people who actually produce salable products and pay taxes of doing the same thing. They have pills for people like you.
Dont worry folks, Twinkies last forever, and they are making billions and billions of them. Enough to feed the world forever
Even when the world is a burnt piece of coal, we will still have Twinkies.
Hostess, Maker of Twinkies, Files for Bankruptcy
By BEN PROTESS
Tim Boyle/Getty ImagesTwinkies on a packaging line in a bakery in Schiller Park, Ill., in 2009.
8:22 p.m. | Updated
Hostess Brands, known for sweet treats like Twinkies and Ding Dongs, is back in Chapter 11.
Uh, we can "thank Russia" for the beautiful sunsets? That is like thanking Colorado for getting rid of the trees.
Or thanking a Tsunami for revealing fresh soil...
After reading this comment thread on an article about the visual effects of wildfires being visible in another hemisphere, degrading into twinkies and commies and traitors and palin jokes tells me 2 things.
The world is going to hell.
And the world SHOULD go to hell.
that is sooooo optimistic of u
how do u know it isn't ALREADY hell?
what comes around
goes around
"I can see Russia from my house"
You don't suppose this is going to effect the spotted owls, Brandt Cormorants and the Bald eagles that we've trying so hard to protect from the smoke and noise of pyrotechnics on the forth of July do you ???
Heck, at this rate we will be able to walk to RUSSIA. We can move that bridge to nowhere that Sarah Palin was talking about and move it to the Straits between Alaska and Russia and we would have something really nice. We could just walk to Russia and go camping is Siberia, i hear the climate is really nice. No more icebergs to contend with at least.
And where do you think the smoke from our wildfires goes? Next, the writer of this article may suggest taller fences to keep that Siberian smoke out.
All the posts about radioactivity make me wonder when the Japanese are going to release the next generation of Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and other movie monsters caused by radiation. Got my popcorn ready.
Photos from Tomsk
www. flickr. com/photos/evgenystavitsky/7655754766/in/photostream/