#33 What do massive bushfires mean for stratospheric ozone levels? A conversation with Kane Stone.

Joining us on the podcast today is Dr. Kane Stone, a research scientist in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Kane completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne on the impacts of stratospheric ozone depletion on climate. He then moved to MIT as a post-doc in Susan Solomon’s Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Change group and has stayed on as a research scientist. Kane was a co-lead author on a recent paper in Nature exploring chemical pathways for wildfire smoke particles to facilitate stratospheric ozone depletion. This study was motivated by the devastating 2019/2020 Australian bushfires, in which smoke extended all the way into the stratosphere. This study is a great example of how new insights into the Earth system can be gained by blending theory, lab experiments, observations and climate modeling. In our conversation, we also chatted about some of the other phenomena that have been perturbing the stratosphere in recent years, including the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Haʻapai undersea volcano. https://www.ssolomongroup.mit.edu/kanestone