Smoke from forest fires smothering Moscow adds to health problems of “brown clouds” from Asia to the Amazon and Russian soot may stoke global warming by hastening a thaw of Arctic ice, environmental experts say. “Health effects of such clouds are huge,” said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, chair of a U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) study of “brown clouds” blamed for dimming sunlight in cities such as Beijing or New Delhi and hitting crop growth in Asia. The clouds — a haze of pollution from cars or coal-fired power plants, forest fires and wood and other materials burned for cooking and heating — are near-permanent and blamed for causing chronic respiratory and heart diseases.

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Russia’s fires cause "brown cloud," may hit Arctic

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