Right now, most of the Arctic Circle is covered in a swirling layer of thick smoke from wildfires burning in parts of Russia, including Siberia, Greenland, and Alaska, according to Live Science.
For the past few months now, scientists with Europe’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) have been keeping an eye on over 100 fires above the Arctic Circle, all of them pumping particulates and other pollution into the sky.
“I think it’s fair to say July Arctic Circle #wildfires are now at unprecedented levels,” Copernicus senior scientist Mark Parrington said on Twitter Monday.
TheNewNormal?
Smoke vortex caused by the #Siberia #wildfires
A rough order of magnitude estimate puts the smoke-covered area at a mind boggling 2 million (yes million) square kilometresSentinel3 acquired today 24 July 6JQJcXuCSg— Copernicus EMS (@CopernicusEMS) July 24, 2019
The largest fires in Russia, likely caused by lightning strikes, are located in the regions of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Buryatia, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory. The three wildfires have burned 320 square miles (829 square kilometers), 150 square miles (388 square km) and 41 square miles (106 square km) in these regions, respectively, as of July 22, 2019.
Wildfires are also blazing in Greenland and parts of Alaska, following what was the hottest June in recorded history. While it is not unusual for fires to occasionally burn in the Arctic during the summer, the number and extent of the wildfires this year are being called “unusual and unprecedented,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at CAMS.
“It is unusual to see fires of this scale and duration at such high latitudes in June,” Parrington added. “But temperatures in the Arctic have been increasing at a much faster rate than the global average, and warmer conditions encourage fires to grow and persist once they have been ignited.”
Wildfires choking Alaska and permafrost melting 70 years ahead of schedule.
Read more: #arctic #environment pic.twitter.com/4NNW2ycu9W
— World Economic Forum (@wef) July 20, 2019
The wildfires are also contributing to the climate crisis by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. About 100 megatons of carbon dioxide was released from June 1 to July 21, which is roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide Belgium released in all of 2017, according to CAMS, CNN reported.
This release of carbon dioxide in such huge amounts is because the fires are burning further to the north and some appear to be burning in peat soils, rather than forests, Thomas Smith, an assistant professor of environmental geography at the London School of Economics, told USA Today.
“This is a dangerous situation because whereas forests might typically burn for a few hours, peat soils can blaze for days or even months,” Smith said. He added that because peat soils are known carbon reservoirs, when they burn they release carbon, “which will further exacerbate greenhouse warming, leading to more fires.”
