Summer In Siberia 2020: Widespread Fires, Record Heat, Melting Soil And Toxic Spills [View all]

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A dry grass fire in Siberia, about 75 kilometers wide, is seen in this photo from the EU's Copernicus Sentinel satellite

In late May, a massive fuel spill flooded waterways and a freshwater lake near the Arctic city of Norilsk in Siberia. The spill came as the region was suffering from a record number of wildfires, with an outbreak incinerating wide swaths of the tundra. At first glance, these recent environmental disasters in Siberia don't appear to be linked, but considering their frequency and intensity, scientists say it's clear that what do they have in common is climate change.

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In fact, Siberia's summer temperatures can even peak in the 30s — so then just how much of a problem are the heat waves of recent years? The short answer: a big one. "We've had decades of warming in this region… [and] it's warming faster than anywhere else on the planet," said Thomas Smith, assistant professor in environmental geography at the London School of Economics.

The first half of this year was unseasonably warm, with temperatures in July nearly 10 degrees above average. In June, the mercury in the town of Verkhoyansk, located north of the Arctic Circle, hit 38 C — which is believed to be a record. Even worse, the winters are also getting warmer. This year's was the warmest in 130 years of observations, according to the Russian Hydrometeorological Research Center.

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The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) estimates that roughly 100 megatons of CO2 were released by June fires in Sakha Republic and neighboring Chukotka, across the Bering Strait from Alaska. That's roughly equivalent to the annual fossil fuel emissions released by Belgium in 2017. Smith believes that roughly half of the fires sweeping Siberia are on peatland, naturally wet carbon-rich soil several meters deep made up of partly decayed plant matter that accumulates over thousands of years. With climate change, this peat layer is more likely to dry out and become a tinderbox just waiting to ignite. And burning peat releases 10 to 100 times more carbon than a burning tree, according to Guillermo Rein, a professor of fire science at Imperial College London.

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https://www.dw.com/en/siberia-fires-permafrost/a-54120019