Wildfires Blaze Through Arctic Regions

Smoke from hundreds of wildfires has darkened skies over the Alaskan interior this summer.

Tens of thousands of lightning strikes ignited the majority of active fires, according to the Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service.

By late August, more than 1.2 million hectares (three million acres) had burned across the state – roughly triple what is seen in an average year but no longer unusual in a warming world.

Aljazeera on Thursday added that with the climate change raising Arctic temperatures faster than the global average, wildfires are shifting poleward where the flames blaze through forests and release vast amounts of greenhouse gases from the carbon-rich organic soil.

The Republic of Sakha was the Arctic region hardest hit by fires, which consumed vast swaths of larch forest.

By summer’s end, nearly 50 per cent more carbon had been released in the region than in any year in the past two decades.

Arctic wildfires that sparked above the 66th parallel north unleashed an estimated 16 million tonnes of carbon in 2021 – roughly equal to the annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of Peru – according to a report by the Copernicus Climate Change Service.