20 | New Scientist | 31 August 2019
DEVASTATING wildfires across the
world have made front-page news
in recent times, from last year’s
deadly blazes in Greece to the
widespread property destruction
in Canada three years ago. One
place you might not expect to
be burning, however, is the Arctic.
Yet as New Scientist went to press,
millions of hectares of land in the
Arctic were ablaze.
Fire is a natural part of the
ecology of the vast boreal forests
that girdle Earth in northern
latitudes. But the amount of
vegetation that has been on fire
across Alaska, Canada and Russia
since June is highly unusual. Even
Greenland, four-fifths of which
is covered in ice, has seen fires.
The impacts on human health
and the environment are coming
into focus – and they are worrying.
Is there anything we can do?
This year has already seen
striking fires around the world,
including in places not usually
known for them, such as the UK
(see “Fires in February”, right). In
Indonesia, where fires are often
started to clear areas for oil-palm
plantations, the fire season may
prove to be as bad as that of 2015,
when blazes there created a plume
of smoke that extended halfway
around the planet. Brazil’s space
agency has reported more than
75,000 fires in the Amazon this
year, a record number. A surprising
number of crop fires have hit the
Netherlands, Germany and
Luxembourg, says Cathelijne
Stoof at Wageningen University
in the Netherlands.
You would be forgiven for
thinking that fires are on the rise
globally. In fact, the evidence
doesn’t bear that out. For example,
a 2017 study led by Niels Andela
at NASA used satellite images
to show that the amount of land
being burned worldwide has
actually decreased in recentdecades. This is probably because
of the way we are managing forests
to reduce the risk of fire.
Surprising as it may seem,
this year isn’t that special when
it comes to fire, either, globally
speaking. The European Union’s
Copernicus Atmosphere
Monitoring Service (CAMS) says
that some 3500 megatonnes
of carbon dioxide were emitted
from wildfires in the first half
of this year. At a global level, that
makes 2019 distinctly middling
compared with the past 16 years.
The fires in the north, however,
are exceptional. “This year has
been unprecedented for wildfirestemperature records have
tumbled, making it warm and dry
enough for blazes. “The north is a
big tinder box, but it’s been limited
from burning by the climate,” says
Merritt Turetsky at the University
of Guelph in Canada. “If you
remove those climatic constraints,
all those fuels are ready to go.”
Climate change could also be
contributing to the lightning
strikes that usually ignite the fires.
More lightning is linked to rising
surface temperatures. “Hot
weather is making the Arctic more
thunderstormy than normal,” says
Rod Taylor of the World Resources
Institute in Washington DC.
Most of the fires are in remote
regions, but that doesn’t mean
people are escaping the effects.
“What happens in the Arctic
doesn’t stay in the Arctic. Pollution
can carry thousands of miles
away,” says Elizabeth Hoy at NASA.
The agency has tracked smoke
from the fires in Siberia reaching
the US and Canada. That pollution
can combine with a city’s localSiberia has been hit hard
by wildfires, as this
satellite image showsWildfiresCONT
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Wildfires raging in the normally wet Arctic could spur a powerful
feedback loop releasing yet more emissions, discovers Adam Vaughanin the Arctic,” says Carly Phillips at
the Union of Concerned
Scientists and Woods Hole
Research Centre in Massachusetts.
About 173 megatonnes of CO 2
have been emitted from Arctic
fires so far this year, according
to CAMS, which is a record amount
(see chart, below). Russia has
been hit hardest, with more than
13 million hectares affected and
smoke hazes reported in cities.
So why the surge in Arctic fires?
The region is effectively stuffed
with fuel: huge swathes of forest
and peat. Most of this doesn’t
normally burn because it is cold
and wet. But this year, maximum200150100500Annual
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ns(megatonnes)2005 2010 2015 2019The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by wildfires in the Arctic is a proxy for
how big the blazes are. The fires in 2019 are the largest for at least 16 years2019 data is
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