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.

That data is consistent with a pattern of warming confirmed by other scientific reports. And Arctic warming has an effect elsewhere: Many studies, including one in 2018 by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that the persistent warming of the Arctic may be influencing extreme weather events around the world.