Siberian wildfires dwarf all others on Earth combined
By Tom Metcalfe - Live Science Contributor about 7 hours ago
Smoke just reached the North Pole in a first.
This aerial picture taken on July 27, 2021, shows a burned forest at Gorny Ulus, west of Yakutsk, in Siberia. (Image credit: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)
Smoke from massive wildfires in Russia's Siberia region has reached the geographic North Pole "for the first time in recorded history," according to NASA — while the forest blazes themselves are bigger than all the other wildfires currently burning in the world combined, one expert said.
The U.S space agency published a photograph Saturday (Aug. 7) from one of its satellites that shows the acrid blanket of smoke stretching more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers), from the Yakutia region in the northeast of Siberia up to the North Pole. According to their records, this may be the first time this has ever happened.
Wildfires occur every summer in the heavily forested region — a landscape known as the taiga — but this year has been especially bad.
Last year, the wildfires in Siberia were described by the Russian authorities as "very severe" and estimated to have caused the equivalent of 450 million tons (410 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide to be released throughout the whole season; but this year the wildfires have released an equivalent of more than 505 million tons (460 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide, and the wildfire season isn't over yet.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/siberian-wildfire-smoke-reaches-north-pole.html
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