Altitude smoke

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Height smoke (also army smoke , Hehrrauch , Herauch , hair smoke , Heider Also , Höhrauch , country smoke , Moor smoke , sun smoke ) denotes a clouding of the atmosphere , the (consisting predominantly of solid particles) by aerosols is caused in a relatively high altitude. The cause can be B. volcanic eruptions (e.g. after the Laki catastrophe in 1783), large fires or slash and burn , the aerosols of which are distributed over a large area.

In a narrower sense, however, altitude smoke describes a historical phenomenon, caused by the moor fire culture practiced on a large scale, especially in the Netherlands and northern Germany, until the 20th century . The surface of a bog was loosened with hoes to facilitate drying, this was repeated, and in May the bog was set on fire. Buckwheat was then sown in the ashes . The thick smoke created by these fires reduced visibility to less than 30 m in the immediate vicinity and caused breathing difficulties. The smoke then spread through the troposphere and was carried over thousands of kilometers by high-altitude winds . One then observed a cloudiness and brownish color of the earth's atmosphere , which reached a few degrees above the horizon, and above all a strong reddish color of the low-lying sun.

Depending on the wind direction, the smoke from the heights even reached Lisbon and St. Petersburg . In the regions in the main wind direction (the Netherlands, northern France, England) it was a well-known phenomenon in the 19th century. Accordingly, there are not only numerous names in German, but also in the languages ​​of the countries concerned: in Dutch veenrook , heirook and seerook , in English dry fog and in French brouillard sec .

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ In some areas, “hair” is the name given to parts of a moor located higher up
  2. ↑ In the stable, fine weather conditions favorable for the burning down, it was west and north-west.