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19 million ha (47 million acres) of land scorched as wildfires continue to rage in Siberia

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Major cities in Russia are covered in haze and smoke as mega wildfires continue to rage through Siberia.

According to satellite monitoring data, fires have torched 19 million ha (47 million acres) of the area since the beginning of 2020– an area bigger than Greece. About 10 million ha (25 million acres) of these suffered forest fires.

Much of the blaze is happening in the remote areas of Far Eastern Russia and Eastern Siberia. 

Last week, harmful haze from fires covered the cities of Yakutsk, Urgorsk, and Sovetsky, as well as many other smaller towns and villages. The air quality has been affected, which raised concerns that it further aggravated respiratory issues.

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Several wildfires in the Sakha Republic on July 20, 2020. Image credit: Copernicus EU/Sentinel-2, Pierre Markuse

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Image credit: Copernicus EU/Sentinel-2, Pierre Markuse

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Image credit: Copernicus EU/Sentinel-2, Pierre Markuse

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Siberia wildfires on July 20, 2020. Image credit: Copernicus EU/Sentinel-2, Annamaria Luongo

While some of these forest fires were sparked by lightning, others were started on the river banks that were most probably a consequence of campfires, according to Greenpeace Russia campaigners.

Another common cause of wildfires in Siberia and Far Eastern Russia are large-scale prescribed burnings that became difficult to control, and the legal requirement enforced on logging companies to destroy logging leftovers.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also took note of prolonged heatwave in Siberia.

YouTube video

Featured image credit: Copernicus EU/Sentinel-2, Pierre Markuse

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6 Comments

    1. I like your comment, but have you ever considered climate change as something other than things of the air and earth. I suppose that if we recognized climate change as it is in reality “political”. And the only way to get a political climate change is to confuse people with the words “climate change”. It is actually vague and ambiguous wording. But, the earth changes and always has. Hope that helps?

  1. @Jamal Shrair There wasn’t word that boreal forest wildfire is an novel phenomenon on Earth due to diesel and powerplant exhaust. Wildfire is quite natural, especially when temperature rises around. And guess what – it reases indeed and it reases more rapidly than it happened before. So heatwaves and drought brings fire, ligthning as well, however you should find sth about thunderstorm causes.
    Try to fill up some container with carbon dioxide (no need to make it 100%) and other one with regular air. Then turn identical lamps on the containers and compare their temperatures after while. Connect the dots.

  2. THE ADVOCATES OF MAN-MADE CLIMATE CHANGE ARE PROPAGATING NEW MYTH………
    The increase of wildfires, especially in the last four years, has been exploited by the advocates of manmade climate change to propagate new myth. They are claiming that global warming-which according to their dogmatic belief is caused by human activities-is the reason for the increase of wildfires. Nothing could be further from the truth, to start with wildfires, have always been an important part in the history of the Earth. In fact, wildfires have played vital roles in the mass extinction events that reshaped the Earth. Read my article The Helical Sun. https://nexusmagazine.com/product/the-helical-sun/?v=35b5282113b8 However, in physical reality, the increase of wildfires is caused by the increase of lightning and the increase of lightning is caused by the increase of the rate of solar-cosmic radiations that reach the atmosphere and the surface of our planet.

    1. Of course, fires are part of Earth’s history and have been around For a long time.
      But there is a correlation between the intensification of wildfires and global warming that is caused by human activity.

      Deniers attribute the intensification of fires to anything else but climate change!

      “ What Effect Do Solar Cycles Have on Earth’s Climate?
      According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the current scientific consensus is that long and short-term variations in solar activity play only a very small role in Earth’s climate. Warming from increased levels of human-produced greenhouse gases is actually many times stronger than any effects due to recent variations in solar activity.

      For more than 40 years, satellites have observed the Sun’s energy output, which has gone up or down by less than 0.1 percent during that period. Since 1750, the warming driven by greenhouse gases coming from the human burning of fossil fuels is over 50 times greater than the slight extra warming coming from the Sun itself over that same time interval.“

      https://climate.nasa.gov/blog/2910/what-is-the-suns-role-in-climate-change/

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