Siberian heat wave is a 'warning cry' from the Arctic, climate
scientists say
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[June 26, 2020]
By Matthew Green and Emma Farge
LONDON/GENEVA (Reuters) - Pine trees are
bursting into flames. Boggy peatlands are tinderbox dry. And towns in
northern Russia are sweltering under conditions more typical of the
tropics.
Reports of record-breaking Arctic heat – registered at more than 100
Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk on June 20 –
are still being verified by the World Meteorological Organization. But
even without that confirmation, experts at the global weather agency are
worried by satellite images showing that much of the Russian Arctic is
in the red.
That extreme heat is fanning the unusual extent of wildfires across the
remote, boreal forest and tundra that blankets northern Russia. Those
blazes have in turn ignited normally waterlogged peatlands.
Scientists fear the blazes are early signs of drier conditions to come,
with more frequent wildfires releasing stores of carbon from peatland
and forests that will increase the amount of planet-warming greenhouse
gases in the air.
"This is what this heat wave is doing: It makes much more fuel available
to burn, not just vegetation, but the soil as well," said Thomas Smith,
an environmental geographer at the London School of Economics. "It's one
of many vicious circles that we see in the Arctic that exacerbate
climate change."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2020/Jun/26/images/ads/current/chicagost_sda_HG_2020.png)
Satellite records for the region starting in 2003 suggest there has been
a dramatic jump in emissions from Arctic fires during just the last two
summers, with the combined emissions released in June 2019 and June 2020
greater than during all of the June months in 2003-2018 put together,
Smith said.
Atmospheric records dating back more than a century show Arctic air
temperatures also reaching new highs in recent years. That leads Smith
to believe the scale of the fires could be unprecedented as well.
"What we're seeing happening right now is the consequence of the past"
industrial emissions, Smith says. "What will happen in 40 years' time is
already locked in. We can't do anything about that. That's why we should
be concerned; it can only get worse."
Although peatland covers only 3% of the Earth's land surface, those
deposits contain twice as much carbon as all the world's forests
together.
A NEW NORMAL
Scientists have known climate change is causing the Arctic to warm twice
as quickly as the rest of the world, and the Siberian heat wave, which
began in May, is typical of that trend.
"It becomes like an oven," said Walt Meier, a senior research scientist
at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado
who specialises in sea ice. "You are doing that on top of the
longer-term warming trend, so you are getting the oven nicely baking a
pie to scorching it."
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![](../images/062620PIX/news_J17.jpg)
Smoke rises from wildfires near Berezovka River in Russia in this
June 23, 2020 color infrared image supplied by Maxar Technologies.
Image taken June 23, 2020. Satellite image ©2020 Maxar Technologies
via REUTERS
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"What used to be extreme is becoming normal. Warmer temperatures are
now relatively frequent," Meier said.
And as temperatures warm, and polar snow and ice melt, more Arctic
area is left darker and absorbs heat faster, which contributes to
more warming. The Arctic sea ice has lost 70% of its summer volume
since the 1970s, with the area also shrinking to the point that last
year saw one of the lowest ice covers on record.
"WARNING CRY"
The peat fires make the need to cut man-made emissions all the more
urgent, say scientists, who warn that wider changes in the Arctic
could trigger bigger impacts on the global climate system.
"It's a huge warning cry that's going off, but it's not the only
systemic problem that's happening in the Arctic related to climate
change," said Gail Whiteman, incoming professor of sustainability at
Britain's University of Exeter and founder of the Arctic Basecamp
group of scientists advocating for rapid climate action.
Whiteman and other researchers are also worried about the rising
heat thawing Arctic permafrost faster than expected, which is
liable to produce far larger quantities of carbon dioxide and
methane than are being released by the fires.
Guido Grosse, head of the Permafrost Research Unit at the Alfred
Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research in
Germany, said the fires were stripping away peat and vegetation that
normally would form a protective blanket over the permafrost.
"If you take this away the heat from the summer penetrates directly
into the ground and warms the permafrost, and it starts thawing," he
said. "You see this effect usually a few years after the fires."
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2020/Jun/26/images/ads/current/charrons_bch041713.png)
The warming temperatures also appear to be making the Arctic
wildfire season longer, said Jessica McCarty, an assistant professor
of geography at Miami University in Ohio. Typically, the Arctic fire
season runs from July to August, plus or minus a couple of weeks.
This year, fires were detected in May.
And "as the peat burns … its neighbor next door gets warmer, and
their neighbors get warmer," McCarty said. "We're burning up these
ancient pools of carbon."
(Reporting by Matthew Green and Emma Farge; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)
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