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.
That emissions estimate is based on the type of vegetation burning at the surface, which means trees in Siberia’s taiga forests and grasses and shrubs on the tundra. However, a recent analysis by environmental geographer Thomas Smith of the London School of Economics shows that roughly half of this year’s Arctic Circle fires are burning on peatlands, which store enormous amounts of carbon below ground.
In addition to greenhouse gases, the fires are pumping out copious amounts of particulate matter, the tiny particles that make wildfire smoke smoky. As blazes raged across Siberia last week, dense ribbons of smoke could be seen in satellite imagery streaming over the Bering Sea and entering Alaska and then northern Canada. Experts say this smoke may also be having a climate effect: As dark-colored soot particles, also known as black carbon, land on Arctic ice, they cause it to absorb more of the sun’s energy, which hastens its melt.
Source: Grist
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