The collective imagination makes one think of the Artic as an area covered in ice. However, the climate emergency is altering the conditions and temperatures of the area, favouring an increasing number of large fires in summer. The European service Copernicus The European Commission has tracked emissions from forest fires this June and has calculated that they are already the third highest in 20 years. “Climate change is now causing temperatures 10 degrees higher than normal and drier conditions, which favours ignition,” explains Mark Parrington, an expert at the European organisation. In addition, the smoke deposits black particles on the polar mass, which drives the melting of the ice.
Most of the fires are burning in the Sakha Republic, in Russia, in the Arctic Circle. This region has been experiencing a significant increase in temperatures and drier than normal surface conditions for this time of year, a breeding ground for these types of large fires. He Atmosphere Monitoring Service The Copernicus Earth Observation System (CAMS) – part of the European Union’s Earth Observation Programme – has noted a significant increase in total daily Fire Radiative Power (FRP), indicating greater intensity of fires and smoke emissions across the region.
“This is the third time since 2019 that we have seen such huge wildfires in the Arctic, which shows that this region has experienced the largest increase in extreme fires in the last two decades,” Parrington says by phone. We are talking about 20 years, but these fire monsters have occurred especially since 2019: that year, 13.8 megatons of carbon were recorded, while the following year it was 16.3. This June, the measurement already amounts to 6.8 megatons, although it could still increase.
The Copernicus scientist, researcher in fires and air quality, continues: “The effect of climate change has caused temperatures in the Arctic to rise at least twice as much as in the rest of the world. This, in combination with drier than normal soil, more extreme weather conditions and a higher risk of fire, has caused the Arctic to experience a higher risk of fire than in the rest of the world. [que puede causar más rayos] and earlier snowmelt increases the risk of fires.”
Sérgio Henrique Faria, Ikerbasque professor at the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) and director of the low temperature laboratory IzotzaLabhighlights how “fires cause smoke, which generates black particles and, in many cases, are deposited in the polar region.” “When this happens, they darken the ice, and that changes the albedo [el porcentaje de radiación que refleja la superficie respecto a la radiación] and accelerates the melting of the ice, which warms up faster because it stays dark.” And he continues: “This produces a negative loop: warming causes more melting, which generates drought, which facilitates fires, which in turn drives more warming.”
Discover the pulse of the planet in every news story, don’t miss a thing.
KEEP READING
As Parrington points out, “the fires in this region burn not only vegetation, but also the soil, such as permafrost [suelo congelado permanentemente], which is rich in carbon, thereby releasing carbon that may have been captured for thousands of years into the atmosphere, which in turn further drives climate change. “So the risk is much greater to the Earth’s climate than when just burning vegetation.”
Faria warns: “The increase in the frequency and intensity of these fires, driven by climate change, is very worrying, because they create a feedback loop for the warming of the region. In addition, they not only cause problems where they occur – Siberia, Alaska and Northern Europe – but in the polar region they generate various climatic effects that then reach all of Europe, Asia and North America, so that everything that changes the Arctic ultimately affects lower latitudes, where there is more population.”
Fires in Canada
Last year we already saw huge fires in Canada, whose smoke reached Spain. According to the Government of that country, the flames of 6,669 fires destroyed 18.5 million hectares, an area larger than Florida. Copernicus later calculated that they emitted at least 410 million tons of CO₂, much more than all the emissions recorded in 2022 in Spain (244.3).
In addition to the wildfires in the Arctic, CAMS has also been closely monitoring the intensity and emissions of fires in the Pantanal wetlands, located in Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay. In the Brazilian province of Mato Grosso do Sul (where most of the Pantanal wetlands are located), total daily Fire Radiative Power (FRP) has been significantly above average for several weeks, and total carbon emissions May and June are more than double the previous highest values in the GFAS data set during May-June 2009. Total estimated emissions for May-June are also the highest in the last two decades for Bolivia and Paraguay and the highest for Brazil since 2004.
You can follow Climate and Environment in Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#large #fires #Arctic #intense #smoke #accelerates #melting