Arctic on fire

Are wildfires in the Arctic getting worse, and is climate change behind any such change?

The period 2006 - 2015 saw what was considered to be relatively low activity for Arctic wildfires. Despite its reputation for the cold, the Arctic does routinely suffer from wildfires, typically between May and October, with peak activity usually experienced in July / August.

The difference this year seems to be that the fire locations, the intensity and the length of time the fires are burning, are particularly unusual - at least according the EU's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). Mark Parrington of CAMS says that they are at "unprecedented levels."

It seems that a very dry June is the key factor here; the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) say that globally, 2019 was the hottest June in the instrumented era. Dry storms and hot weather have seemingly caused the fire season to hit its peak earlier. Parrington says, "Extremely dry ground and hotter than average temperatures, combined with heat, lightning and strong winds, have caused the fires the spread aggressively."

Arctic average temperatures are rising at twice the global average rate. Parrington told CNN at the end of July that, "Temperatures in the Arctic have been increasing at a much faster rate than the global average, and warmer conditions encourage fires to grow and persist once they have been ignited."

Water-heavy peat, that is common throughout much of the area, can help prevent the spread of fires, but when it dries out, as is the case in parts of the Arctic at the moment, it becomes highly flammable.

Eastern Russia / Siberia:
The Russian Federal Forestry Agency says that 2.7m hectares (6.7m acres) of remote forest, across six Siberian and east Russian regions, including Buryatia and Sakha, are burning. Greenpeace puts the figure at nearer 3.3m hectares.

There is some controversy, with many Russians saying that the government has not been doing enough to combat the fires (citing the high exposure of the Notre Dame fire earlier this year), but officials respond by pointing out that the fires are in hard to reach places, and don't have direct impact on civilian populations.

However, there have been human impacts; smog from the fires are affecting several regions, leading to a state of emergency being declared in some. In the major city of Novosibirsk, smoke drifts across the urban areas, and there has been a rise in health complaints, particularly from people experiencing breathing difficulties.

It has been reported that June temperatures in parts of Siberia have been up to 10°C higher than the 1981-2010 averages! President Putin eventually has responded, sending in the army to help fight the fires, along with ten planes and ten helicopters fitted with firefighting equipment.

The image on the left shows thermal anomalies, that may include other features like volcanoes; the right hand image shows the smog impact across the region (Nasa, Aqua/Modis, GEOS-FP)

Alaska:
By 31 July, 105 large fires, and maybe as many as 400 fires in total, had been reported across the state. These are affecting around 0.7m hectares (1.78m acres) of land (although the Guardian quoted 2.06m acres), with most reported to have been started by lightning strikes (according to the Alaska Interagency Coordination Center).

But Dan Thompson of Natural Resources Canada, points out that this year is only the fifth busiest year for fires in Alaska in the last two decades. There was a record reached last month though; on 4th July, temperatures in the state reached up to 32.2°C in places - a new July record for Alaska.

Greenland:
The recent heatwave has seen sea ice melting at a faster rate here, You can see evidence of abundant melt ponds (in photo below), which are another effect of temperatures increasing.

Qeqqata fire shows towards bottom left - Greenland ice sheet, to the right, shows lots of blue dots, which are the melt ponds (image: Copernicus Sentinel 3 satellite)

The Danish Meteorological Institute say that 200 billion tons of ice have melted in July. By 31 July, a record 56.5% of the Greenland ice sheet was showing signs of melting. There is also a wildfire raging at Qeqqata Kommunia, which is close to the Arctic Circle Trail, a route popular with hikers.

Canada:
Meanwhile, in Canada, Thompson, who is a Forest Fire Research Scientist with Natural Resources Canada, says that it has been an "average" summer for fires there. One fire has been ravaging the Northwest Territories though - estimated to be about 45,500 acres in size, but the actual size may actually be much bigger.

Impacts:
Wildfires provide a range of devastating potential impacts on the globe and on humans;

• Release of toxic gases
• Thick smoke produced - reduces visibility and damages human health
• Soot produced
• Can get into animal lungs and bloodstreams
• Contributes to global warming effects
• Absorbs sunlight and warms the atmosphere
• When it falls on snow and ice, it reduces reflectivity and traps heat, which speeds up melting
• CO2 released
• 50 megatons were released in June
• This equates to Sweden's entire annual average
• This is more than all the CO2 emitted by all June wildfires between 2010 - 2018 combined
• 79 megatons released in July

Much of the greenhouse gas (GHG) being emitted by wildfires is actually from previously stored CO2 and methane in the ground / plants, which is released as it burns. Thomas Smith, an environmental geographer with the London School of Economics, says, "The fires are burning through long-term carbon stores.... emitting GHGs, which will further exacerbate greenhouse warming, leading to more fires." 

Atmospheric Scientist, Santiago Gasso, has estimated that the Siberian fires have created a smoke lid that is covering around 4.5m km2 (1.7m miles2) of central and northern Asia.

Next years wildfire patterns will go a long way to showing us whether this is the beginning of a pattern of worsening, and perhaps more prolonged, fires, or whether it will return to the lower ebb of a decade or so ago. 

One thing seems to be for sure - if the fires are bad, this can create a devastating feedback loop; increased concentrations of GHGs get released into the atmosphere - more warming occurs - creating hotter and drier conditions - which is ideal for fires and more carbon to be released into the atmosphere.......

Research:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arctic-wildfires-1.5228945
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/arctic-wildfires-1.5228945
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/arctic-burning-greenland-melting-thanks-record-heat
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49125391

The need to change is now!

So, sitting in my study at the end of a day spent in London when it was at least 32­°C and not all that much lower several hours later, brings my mind back to some of the stuff I was looking at when I first thought about this blog.

Back at the end of last year, the UK Met Office released its first set of climate predictions in almost 10 years; the UK Climate Projections 2018 (UKCP18). These look at four potential climate scenarios in the UK, and how they would pan out over the coming decades. 

This report is useful for planning purposes, and has become even more pertinent given the government legislating for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, to try and do our part in keeping global temperature rises down to around 1.5°C. Also, there has been the rise in prominence of things like Extinction Rebellion, climate emergencies and student activism through people such as Greta Thunberg.

As some background, the report shows some interesting observations for where we find ourselves at the moment, including;

• Average temperature over the decade up to 2017 was 0.3°C warmer than 1981-2010 average, and 0.8°C warmer than 1961-1990
• 9 of the 10 warmest years in the UK have happened since 2002
• In 1961-1990, the average hottest day was 26°C. 
• In the last decade the average was 0.8°C warmer
• Average rainfall, especially in Scotland, has increased over the last two decades.
• There has been a 4% increase in Scotland against the 1981-2010 average
• 2008-2017 – UK summers were an average 17% wetter than 1981-2010, and 20% wetter than 1961-1990
• Mean sea level on the UK coast has risen 16cm (6.3 in) since the start of the 20^th century 

UKCP18 maps out 4 nattily titled Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) to demonstrate the potential effects. We are starting to use this in our business as a means to demonstrate to senior management that there are likely to be quite severe risks (and maybe some opportunities) that need to be faced even when trying to do 'business as usual' - and the more prepared and flexible a business is, the more chance it has of staying in the game (and therefore be sustainable).

As a business, we have taken RCP2.6 - which assumes that loads of stuff is achieved, and we tackle much of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) problem, and RCP8.0 - which assumes almost nothing is done to tackle GHG's at all, completely out of the equation.

Instead we focus on the moderate projections of RCP4.5 and 6.0 (i.e. some actions will be taken, but probably not enough to meet the 1.5 - 2°C scenarios).

1. Moderate projections show that by mid-century, average summer temperatures will increase by around 2-3°C (and possibly 4°C in southern England), and by around 1-3°C in the winter.
2. Moderate projections show that by mid-century, average summer rainfall will decrease by around 10% in northern Scotland and up to 40% along the southern English coast, while increasing by up to 40% in parts of northern Scotland, and 10-30% elsewhere, in the winter.

So what?
There are still a frightening number of people who cannot connect the dots between scientific evidence, the changing weather patterns they have been witnessing over the last few decades, and the potential impacts these changes have, and may more frequently have in the future, on our lives. 

Even worse, there are those that see all of this, and choose to ignore it. There are more than a few politicians who fall into one or other of these camps, naming no orange-skinned, toupee wearing names in particular.

Even though we hear that many of the more catastrophic impacts will be felt elsewhere in the world (so no need to panic, eh) - it always seems to be the poorest people that bear the brunt of this - with increased likelihoods of tropical storms, severe flooding and prolonged drought periods. 

Here in the UK there will almost certainly still be some harsh impacts. Failure to take heed of these will cost us a lot of money (and probably quite a bit more than the cost of properly preparing ourselves), and ultimately, it may cost many lives as well!

How might it look to us?

• Increased flood events - remember the devastation of the flooding in the SW in 2014, or Storm Desmond the following year? Those kind of one in a hundred and one in a decade storms, are becoming much more frequent.
• More high winds - that equals more power lines down, building damage etc. (and then too dangerous conditions for anyone to fix them)
• Prolonged dry periods - will put pressure on water resources, will cause areas to become more prone to wildfires, and dry out soil leading to erosion and compacted ground (which in turn, increased the negative effects of flooding)
• Higher storm surges - leading to increased coastal erosion and damage
• Water scarcity = water rationing
• All of the above = disruption to movement of goods and services; so harder for our food and medicines to get to where they need to be, harder for emergency services to respond, harder for key staff to get into work to fix some of the problems that occur

If you look at the centre boxes to the left - you can get an idea of how summer precipitation may look by the latter part of the century, using the moderate projections.

It is showing a more than reasonable likelihood of rainfall decreasing by at least 10-20%, with areas of the south and south-west getting up towards 30-40% decreases.

While I have said to ignore the more extreme RCP8.5 scenario, you can very clearly see the potential result of doing little or nothing over the next few decades. Those dark brown splodges over the southern half of England indicate rainfall decreasing up to 80%!

And no one should be laughing, because even the places that get off 'lightly' will see rainfall decrease by around 40-50%.

There isn't much to laugh about when looking at the temperature either.

Again, look at the moderate projections for our summer temperatures by late this century. Most of the southern half of England is looking at possible mean temperature rises of maybe 4 or 5°C.

You may say, 'so what?' 
But that could mean your typical August day being 30° instead of 25°C - and a very hot day being 37°C instead of 32° (and I use that example, because it was at least 32° today)!

And like before, look at the possible implications for taking no action on climate change. The top right box (the most extreme of the probabilities) is almost off-the-chart dark red - showing potential mean temperature rises of 8°C or more across all of England, Wales and southern Scotland!










The accusation, and with a degree of truth, that has previously been made of climate scientists, is that there messages are always all 'doom and gloom', and that they aren't very good at discussing the subject in terms that people can, or want, to relate to.

This is fair - and five or ten years ago, we should have been talking less about apocalypses and catastrophes - and more about how the changes we need to make will also make for a world that is much more pleasant to live in (less air pollution, more trees, more green spaces etc.). 

And while that is all still largely a true reflection of what we could have if we get it right - because, to some degree, we didn't get the message across very well and it has been largely ignored - we are now really teetering on the edge of the precipice. 

Research:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/collaboration/ukcp