Forest fires in Canada and Russia have climate scientists on alert

Growing fires in the boreal forests of Canada and Russia are drastically reducing air quality and pumping tons of carbon dioxide into the earth’s atmosphere, the EU’s Earth observation program has warned.

Fires in Canada’s oil-producing province of Alberta alone have burned about 1 million acres since Jan. 1 and forced nearly 30,000 people to evacuate last week.

The relocation of communities and the proximity of the wildfires have also caused the temporary closure or curtailment of operations of more than a dozen oil and gas companies, including Cenovus Energy, Paramount Resources, Crescent Point Energy, NuVista Energy and Tourmaline Oil, the largest gas producer in the country.

About 3.7 percent of production was hit midweek, or about 320,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Reuters reported. This compares to a fire in 2016 that extinguished more than 1 million boe per day of production from the tar sands.

The latest fires have taken hold in the boreal forests, the mostly coniferous northern forests that cover large swathes of Canada, Russia and Alaska, which are the world’s largest terrestrial store of carbon.

According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, fires in Alberta this year have emitted 5 megatons of carbon.

A study published last year found that fires in boreal North America could release up to 12 gigatons of carbon dioxide by 2050, releasing the carbon they store into the atmosphere when they burn.

Global carbon dioxide emissions from energy and industry reached a new record of 36.8 Gt in 2022, calculated the International Energy Agency.

While boreal forest fires are not uncommon in spring, scientists have observed increasing fire intensity over the past decade as average temperatures in the planet’s north have risen faster than near the equator due to global warming, while snow reflective and the arctic ice has melted.

Earlier this year, the researchers found that summer fires in boreal forests have expanded since 2000 and contributed to nearly a quarter of total carbon emissions from wildfires in 2021, releasing a record 1.76 billion tons of CO₂.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday that the country’s military would help provide fire support and airlift assets to people living in Alberta.

Above-average temperatures are expected in the region over the weekend, according to the Government of Canada’s Weather Service, which expects “unusually warm and dry conditions” and above-average seasonal temperatures through Tuesday.

In the United States, the National Weather Service forecasts that an intense heat wave will hit the Pacific Northwest region on Friday, with parts of Oregon and Washington states experiencing unseasonable daytime temperatures of 35C (95F). F).

The fires in Canada have produced large plumes of smoke, visible from satellites, which have swept across the country towards the northeastern United States in recent days and are expected to continue all the way to the Atlantic Ocean in the coming days.

In Russia, wildfires are burning across the Urals and Siberia, in a belt stretching from the Chelyabinsk region through Omsk and Novosibirsk regions to Primorye, and are also affecting Kazakhstan and Mongolia.

Earlier this week, local authorities in Russia said more than 54,000 hectares of forest in the Sverdlovsk region of the Urals was on fire as of Monday morning, the AP reported.

Copernicus said estimated total carbon emissions from the Russian fires are currently below average for the period.

But Mark Parrington, a senior scientist on the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring project, said the scale and intensity of the current fires “reflect an increased fire risk after a few weeks of drier-than-usual conditions”.

In Canada, for example, just over 44% of Alberta was experiencing drought at the end of March, mapping from North American drought monitoring shown.

Fires in the Northern Hemisphere are generally becoming more frequent and intense as the planet warms and summers get hotter. Last summer, extreme heat in the Mediterranean region helped fuel large wildfires in France, Spain, Portugal and Greece.