California’s unprecedented wildfires, driven by man-made climate change, are pumping the atmosphere with tens of millions of tons of carbon dioxide that will only drive global temperatures higher. Two scientists estimate separately for The Energy 202 that the fires in California this year through mid-September burned enough forest to put about 90 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, into the air. For perspective, that’s some 30 million tons more than the total CO2 emissions from providing power to the entire state.

“Given that 2020 is really a record-setting year for California, it’s going to be quite off-the-charts compared to the observational period we have,” said Niels Andela, an atmospheric scientist at Cardiff University in Wales, stressing that his estimate of 91.2 million tons is preliminary given the limited data he has. “That would be my expectation.”

And it shows one of the cruel ironies of global warming — that the U.S. state arguably doing the most to combat climate change is still contributing so much more this year because its drought-stricken woodlands are prone to burn.
Power lines lie in the path of an approaching brush fire along Japatul Road in Jamul, Calif., on Sept. 6. (Photo by Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images)
Power lines lie in the path of an approaching brush fire along Japatul Road in Jamul, Calif., on Sept. 6. (Sandy Huffaker/AFP via Getty Images)
Guido van der Werf, a wildfire emissions expert at Vrije University in Amsterdam who with Andela helps maintain the Global Fire Emissions Database, agreed that his estimate of 90 million metric tons released by fires burning up and down the state from Northern California to rural San Diego County is rough.