Siberian Fires Released More Carbon In Two Months Than All Of Scandanavia Puts Out In A Year

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Several wildfires in the Sakha Republic, Russia, around and within the Arctic Circle. Copernicus Sentinel / Sentinel Hub / Pierre Markuse

Almost exactly a year ago, we reported that June and July wildfires in the Arctic had released as much carbon as Belgium does in an entire year — an unprecedented summertime burn that would amplify the region’s climate change–fueled fever. But everything, apparently, is worse in 2020, including the climate toll of this year’s Arctic fires, which makes 2019 seem like a warm-up.

Data released Monday by the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) shows that in June and July, Arctic fires released 204 megatons of carbon dioxide, far exceeding last year’s 140 megatons and eclipsing the annual emissions of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland combined. With unusually high temperatures continuing to bake the Arctic, the flames show no immediate signs of dying down. Combined with the fact that some of this year’s fires appear to be burning into carbon-rich peat soils, the ultimate climate impact of this year’s fire season could be much greater than what scientists are currently estimating.

While last year’s Arctic fires spanned both Alaska and Siberia, this year, Siberia is the definitive star of the show. Following months of warm weather, fires began flaring up in northern Siberia around the start of May. The blazes escalated significantly in mid-June as a brutal heat wave descended on Russia’s northeastern Sakha Republic, causing the town of Verkhoyansk to sweat through the Arctic’s first-ever 100-degree F day. By the end of the month, Arctic fires had pumped 59 megatons of carbon dioxide into the air, eclipsing the 53 megatons emitted in June 2019 and setting a new high-water mark for Arctic fire emissions in records going back to 2003.

But things were still heating up. In July, Siberia’s wildfires ramped up even further as a large cluster of fires raged across both the Sakha Republic and the Chukotka region further east. Toward the end of the month, daily levels of “fire radiative power,” a measure of the fires’ heat output, far eclipsed those seen in 2019. CAMS senior scientist Mark Parrington told Grist in an email that over the last several weeks, satellites have detected around 600 individual fire “hotspots” in the Arctic Circle every day, compared with 200 to 300 on average in July 2019. By the end of the month, Parrington estimates these fires pumped another 145 megatons of carbon into the sky.

EDIT

https://grist.org/climate/arctic-fires-released-more-carbon-in-two-months-than-scandinavia-will-all-year/