Katyelle Ferreira da Silva Bezerra, Flavio T. Couto, Helber Barros Gomes, Janaina Nascimento, Paulo Vítor de Albuquerque Mendes, Dirceu Luís Herdies, Hakki Baltaci, Maria Cristina Lemos da Silva, Mayara Christine Correia Lins, Caroline Bresciani, Rafaela Lisboa Costa, Madson Tavares Silva, Heliofábio Barros. GOMES, Daniel Milano Costa de Lima, José de Brito Silva, Fabrício Lopes de Araujo. Paz, Fabrício Daniel dos Santos Silva
This study examines two wildfire events in the southern Amazon in August 2021, addressing the challenges in investigating the development of pyro-convective clouds in tropical regions. The analysis combines the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, Fire Radiative Power derived from the Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20 satellites, and meteorological conditions from thermodynamic profiles and atmospheric modeling. The Meso-NH model was applied exploratorily with two simulations that allow convection, at a 2.5 km resolution. In the first case, a pyro-convective cloud (PyroCu) formed directly from active fires. In the second, a deep convective cloud developed over dispersed fire hotspots, exhibiting characteristics compatible with pyro-convective activity, although uncertainties remain regarding its classification as a true PyroCb. The results indicate that background thermodynamic instability primarily controls vertical plume development, modulating the influence of fire intensity. Incorporating high-resolution thermodynamic profiles into coupled atmospheric and chemical dispersion models can improve estimates of smoke injection height, complementing information on fire power. The results provide a basis for future developments related to understanding tropical pyro-convective clouds, showing how smoke dispersion may occur in the tropical region depending on the vertical structure of the atmosphere and fire intensity.