15 August 2020 | New Scientist | 19Controlled burns in
Sakha, Russia, aim to
reduce the risk of firesin the atmosphere for about a
month. For the 4 million people
living in the Arctic, the effect of
the smoke will be one of the most
immediate impacts, says Phillips.
The air pollution from the fires
could even exacerbate respiratory
problems in Russia, one of the
countries worst hit by covid-19,
which attacks the lungs.Fires around the Arctic 1-28 July 2020SOURCE: COPERNICUS ATMOSPHERE MONITORING SERVICEARCTIC
CIRCLEALASKA
(US)CANADAGREENLANDNORWAYICELANDNorth
Magnetic
PoleNorth
PoleARCTIC
OCEANHeat output
of fires,
megawatts
per metre
1 to 5
5 to 10
10 to 50
50 to 100
>100RUSSIABarents
SeaBarents
SeaLaptev
SeaLaptev
Seathe University of Colorado
Boulder. How far down they
go is poorly understood.
Some of those underground
fires might even have been
smouldering since last summer,
leading them to be dubbed
“zombie” fires. Researchers are
still divided on how clear-cut the
evidence is for such fires. But if
field trips and satellite images
confirm their existence, that
raises the disturbing prospect of
a short-term feedback loop where
each bad fire year will add to the
next one. “If what we speculated
about zombie fires is true, then
that is an ignition source that will
most likely come into play next
year,” says Parrington.
The smoke from the Russian
fires is moving across Alaska,
Canada and could eventually
reach Greenland, says Parrington.
One main pollutant it contains is
carbon monoxide, which can stayArctic oscillation, which is strongly
positive this year, causing sea ice to
drift towards the North Pole. That
motion away from the coast of
Siberia leads to thinner ice forming.
Siberia’s heat provides extra stress.
Geographically, the ice loss has
been uneven this year, with large
areas of open water in the Laptev
and Barents seas, but ice above
north Alaska at average levels.
Fire alarm
On land, this year’s Arctic fires
have already been more severe
than those in 2019, spewing more
carbon into the atmosphere in July
alone than the 50 megatonnes
released in the whole of 2019 – and
last year was a record-breaker.
“In July, we saw a real step
change,” says Mark Parrington at
the European Centre for Medium-
Range Weather Forecasts in the
UK, who has been tracking the
blazes by satellite since isolated
ones broke out unusually early at
the start of May. They have since
merged into bigger conflagrations
in the Russian republic of Sakha,
over a wider area than last year
(see map, right).
Millions of hectares of native
vegetation have burned in this
part of Siberia, releasing carbon
and vast quantities of smoke.
Firefighting in such a large and
remote area is tough. Russian
authorities have even tried to
bring rainfall by seeding clouds.
The hot, dry conditions in Siberia
have made trees and vegetation
more vulnerable to fire, but the
problem goes deeper.
“Not only is the surface layer
of fuels drier, now we’ve got
receding permafrost. The deeper
soil layers used to be protected
by cold, frozen, wet conditions.
Now that permafrost is no longer
there, allowing fires to penetrate
deeper,” says Merritt Turetsky at
More Insight online
Your guide to a rapidly changing world
newscientist.com/insightNot all of the Arctic has been
sweltering: Alaska and north-west
Canada have been unusually
wet and cold this year, and a
recent study by Turetsky and her
colleagues confirmed that Alaska
is getting wetter during summers.
But in general, 2020 is a disaster
year for the Arctic, the fallout from
which will be global and play out
over the long term.
Warming already appears
to have turned the region from
a carbon sink to a source of it
(see page 38), and the burning
of previously protected carbon
underground will only accelerate
climate change. The alteration
in albedo – how much sunlight
is reflected back into space – from
bright ice turning into dark open
water has the same feedback effect.
Climate models have long
predicted dramatic shifts in the
Arctic, but these are arriving
sooner than expected. “To see
an individual extreme yearof the sort we have, and so
soon, is very concerning,” says
Meredith. “It’s as though some
of our worst predictions for the
future are being played out in
front of our eyes.”
There is still time to act,
says Turetsky. “To me, this is
a warning, a cry from the Arctic.
This is our early beacon sign
of what’s to come in terms of
rapid climate change around
the world. We can still stave
off the worst consequences
of climate change, but our
window to do that is small.” ❚“ Each of these events is
exceptional. That they are
occurring simultaneously
should raise alarms”YE
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