Intense wildfires in the Arctic in June released more polluting gases into the Earth’s atmosphere than in any other month in 18 years of data collection, European scientists said in a report Tuesday. These fires offer a stark portrait of planetary warming trends. The Arctic is warming at least two and a half times faster than the global average rate. Soils in the region are drier than before. Wildfires are spreading across a large swath. In June, fires released 59 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide, greater than all the carbon emissions produced by Norway, an oil-producing country, in a year.
The last time fires in the Arctic were this intense or released such a large volume of emissions was last year, which itself set a record.
“Higher temperatures and drier surface conditions are providing ideal conditions for these fires to burn and to persist for so long over such a large area,” Mark Parrington, a fire specialist at the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which issued the report, said in a statement.
Temperatures in Verkhoyansk, a Siberian town best known as a place of exile in the czarist era, hit a record 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 38 degree Celsius, on June 20. In the Siberian Arctic, scientists said, the soil is drier than ever, and snow cover reached a record low in June 2020.