The Arctic is on Fire

Following the hottest June on record, the Arctic  continues suffering through unprecedented July temperatures.  Lightning strikes close to the Arctic Circle have sparked multiple massive fires.

"The magnitude is unprecedented in the 16-year satellite record," said Thomas Smith, an assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics, to USA Today. "The fires appear to be further north than usual, and some appear to have ignited peat soils." 

 "These are some of the biggest fires on the planet, with a few appearing to be larger than 100,000 hectares (380 square miles)," he told USA Today. "The amount of CO2 (carbon dioxide) emitted from Arctic Circle fires in June 2019 is larger than all of the CO2 released from Arctic Circle fires in the same month from 2010 through to 2018 put together." 

Peat soil is compressed organic material that, when dried has historically been used as fuel.  Climate change is heating the Arctic twice as fast as the rest of the planet, allowing massive areas of peat to dry out and burn.  Unlike a forest or grass fire, that move quickly over the land consuming fuel quickly, peat fires can burn for weeks or months.

Smoke from these fires is visible from space.  The smoke for the largest three of the fires, all in Siberia, has blanketed 1.7 million miles in north central Asia.  Researchers have calculated that these fires generated 110 million tons of CO2 between June 1 and July 21 and  they are still burning.