Apocalypse now?

Okay, so that title may seem a little dramatic, but the events unfolding across the globe in recent days, weeks and months, do seem to be pointing to a very concerning and troubled period for our precious planet (and that may well be an understatement).

We have seen perhaps unprecedented levels of wildfires in the Arctic this summer, there were wildfires in England even in February and not forgetting wildfires in California in the last few weeks.

Australia - 'catastrophic'!
But now we have wildfires in Australia that are being termed 'catastrophic', with fires said to be threatening Sydney itself potentially by Tuesday of this week. Temperatures are expected to reach 37°C by then, with strong winds fanning the flames, and this could well intensify what has already been one hell of a few months for New South Wales (NSW).

Hundred's of bush fires have been raging in the state for the last two months following a period of extended drought. Even some torrential rain storms last week (which had the poor, beleaguered farmers out celebrating for a while) were not enough to properly dampen the fires. There are now more than a hundred burning across NSW and Queensland, with at least three people dead so far, and thousands more displaced from their homes.

Fire rages in Bobin, north of Sydney, this weekend
 (photo: AFP)

The fires have spread across 1,000km (620 miles) of the eastern coast of Australia, and Sydney has spent days shrouded in smoke from fires burning up at Port Macquerie. By Friday, the Rural Fire Service Commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, said they were in 'uncharted territory', with 17 emergency level fires going, a number they say that they have never seen blazing concurrently.

But what really broke the devastation and despair around this situation home to me, was when Fitzsimmons said that they "will save as many people as possible." Not even an appearance of pretending that all will be well at the end of the day! There are already around 1,300 firefighters working tirelessly to try and stem these fires, with the help of around 70 aircraft. But getting water to some of the remoter areas, and even just getting water (it has been an awful drought, don't forget), has been a tough challenge. Additional firefighters have come over from New Zealand to try and give local crews some respite, and Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has not ruled out sending in the military to help.

Scientists are firmly putting this series of events at the door of climate change, saying that the Australian bush fire season is only going to get increasingly longer and more intense, all because of climate change. 2018 and 2017 were the third and fourth hottest Australian years on record, respectively. Morrison has been getting some stick over Australia's poor governmental track record on combating climate change (he is a good buddy of Trump don't forget - with a shared love of the coal industry), but he has been deflecting this by saying now is not the time for politics.

He may not be able to use this excuse for long, as Australians start to adjust to these potentially ever worsening periods of fire, and it seems that the farmers of NSW may become unlikely climate change warriors.

South Yorkshire
At the same time as eastern (and some western parts) Australia fights the ravages of drought and all that brings, large parts of northern England, and especially South Yorkshire, are fighting the effects of intense rainfall.

The last week or so has seen some prolific amounts of rainfall, with a months worth of rain falling in a day in some places. As of Sunday evening, there are almost 50 flood warning in place across England! Seven of these are listed as Severe (that is that they pose a threat to life) on the River Don alone, and the Environment Agency (EA) has posted a further 40 Warnings (flooding is expected) and 93 Alerts elsewhere.

Doncaster Council has been calling for the village of Fishlake to be evacuated, with many residents already being brought out by boat, but more still remaining and taking their chances. The situation there has led to renewed calls that the river (Don) needs to be dredged to help alleviate future issues.

Worksop has declared a 'major incident' after the River Ryton burst its banks. Derby city centre was almost evacuated too, after the river there reached unprecedented levels of 3.35m (11ft). Bentley, on the northern edge of Doncaster has been badly hit by flooding, and this follows it being swamped in floods 12 years ago too.

There is much pain and anger in places like this. People worry if they will be able to afford home insurance anymore (premiums went up after the events 12 years ago), or if they will even be able to get insurance. There was also anger and frustration directed at Doncaster Council, as many residents felt that they did not get protective sandbags issued quickly enough.

Shoppers rescued from the floods near
Parkgate Shopping Centre, Rotherham
(photo: South Yorkshire Police)

And while the chaos is not limited to this area, it does seem to have borne the brunt. There has been much disruption to Northern Rail services in the area and some road closures. Dozens were trapped in the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield Thursday night after many city centre streets flooded leaving buses, cars and taxis unable to get through. Parkgate shopping centre in Rotherham also required boats to get some of its shoppers out, the other day.

South Yorkshire Fire Service have had to bring in five extra high volume pumps and five boat crews from elsewhere in the country to help deal with the demands they are facing.

The end result is the same...
While both of these events are vastly different in nature, the end results are often the same. In both cases people have tragically died, homes are being lost and businesses ruined. The costs to deal with these events, both during and in the aftermath, are staggering, as is the impact and negative effects on the local, regional and often national economies! 

Both events have strong links to climate change effects, and it seems this will happen again and again until we (and especially politicians) wake up to the facts. 

Money and effort has to be spent on measures to combat CO2 emissions, to try and prevent the warming scenarios associated with 1.5 - 2°C average temperature rises. This will help lessen the future likelihood of such events getting worse. 

Then there must also be money spent on preparation and mitigation to try and preempt what will happen as such events become more frequent / more intense (resolving issues around land use, flood defences, water usage etc.). This will mean that businesses, individuals, councils and governments have to change their mindset on what they do and how they do it - but if changes are not made, then the effects of such events will become more devastating to life, home and business.

Research:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50365131 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50341207
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-50365468
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50341846

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