| 2021 Russian wildfires | |
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← 2020 |
From June 2021, the taiga forests in Siberia and the Far East region of Russia were hit by unprecedented wildfires, following record-breaking heat and drought. [1] For the first time in recorded history, wildfire smoke reached the North Pole. [2]
In Yakutia, according to the Republic of Sakha's emergencies ministry, more than 250 fires were burning across roughly 5720 square kilometers of land on July 5. NASA's Aqua satellite also captured images of large fires raging in Kamchatka. [1] In the city of Yakutsk, toxic smoke produced by the fires blanketed the city, reducing air quality to levels described as an "airpocalypse". [3] Fires and smokes forced the Kolyma highway to be closed. A state of emergency was declared, [4] and military planes and helicopters [5] were used to douse the fires and to seed clouds to bring down rainfall. [3] [6] Boats along the River Lena were suspended. Aisen Nikolayev, head of the republic, said the fires were mainly an effect of climate change, and that there had been unusually low rainfall. [7] The Aerial Forest Protection Service said in July that more than half the fires were not being fought. [8]
On August 4, smoke originating from the Siberian wildfires was reported in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, over 2,000 kilometers (around 1,200 miles) south-west from the place where the fires originated. The hourly average concentration, measured at 3pm that same day, reached 103 μg/m³ for the PM2.5 particles, while the one for PM10 particles hit 168 μg/m³. The average daily concentration for PM2.5 was found to have been somewhere between 38 and 69 μg/m³, exceeding the WHO's 24-hour mean air quality guidelines by 1.5 to 2.8 times. [9] [10] Smoke coming from the Siberian fires invaded the capital city again on August 10, albeit less intensely. The national meteorological institute stated on one of the articles on their website that the particle concentration was expected to decrease on August 12. [11]
As of August 12, the Siberian fires were larger than all other fires ongoing across the world combined. [12] NASA also noted that the wildfire smoke had travelled more than 3,000 km (1,864 mi) from Yakutia to reach the North Pole, a feat that "appears to be a first in recorded history." [13]
Fires were unexpected. [8]
Causes of the fires include monitoring difficulties, [14] the shifting patterns of the jet stream and climate change in Russia. [4] The fires were one of several extreme weather events that occurred globally in 2021. [15]
Activists and experts say that fires are often set deliberately to cover up evidence of illegal lumbering or to create new places for timber harvesting under the false pretext of clearing burned areas. Activists in Siberia and the Far East allege such arson is driven by strong demand for timber in the colossal Chinese market, and they have called for a total ban on timber exports to China. Officials have acknowledged the problem and pledged to tighten oversight, but Russia's far-flung territory and regulatory loopholes make it hard to halt the illegal activity. [16]
Large amounts of carbon may be released from formerly frozen ground under the fires, [15] especially peatlands [17] which continued burning from the previous year. [18]
Yakutsk is the capital and largest city of Sakha, Russia, located about 450 km (280 mi) south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of Russia's most rapidly growing regional cities, with a population of 355,443 at the 2021 census.
Sakha, officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), is the largest republic of Russia, located in the Russian Far East, along the Arctic Ocean, with a population of one million. Sakha comprises half of the area of its governing Far Eastern Federal District, and is the world's largest country subdivision, covering over 3,083,523 square kilometers (1,190,555 sq mi). Yakutsk, which is the world's coldest major city, is its capital and largest city.
Verkhoyansk is a town in Verkhoyansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located on the Yana River in the Arctic Circle, 92 kilometers (57 mi) from Batagay, the administrative center of the district, and 675 kilometers (419 mi) north of Yakutsk, the capital of the Sakha republic. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,311. Verkhoyansk holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded north of the Arctic Circle, with 38.0 °C (100.4 °F), and it also holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in Asia, −67.8 °C (−90.0 °F). The cold record is shared with Oymyakon.
Irkutsk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia, located in southeastern Siberia in the basins of the Angara, Lena, and Nizhnyaya Tunguska Rivers. The administrative center is the city of Irkutsk. It borders the Republic of Buryatia and the Tuva Republic in the south and southwest, which separate it from Khövsgöl Province in Mongolia; Krasnoyarsk Krai in the west; the Sakha Republic in the northeast; and Zabaykalsky Krai in the east. It had a population of 2,370,102 at the 2021 Census.
The Yakuts or Sakha are a Turkic ethnic group native to North Siberia, primarily the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenk Districts of the Krasnoyarsk region. They speak Yakut, which belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages.
The East Siberian Sea is a marginal sea in the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the Arctic Cape to the north, the coast of Siberia to the south, the New Siberian Islands to the west and Cape Billings, close to Chukotka, and Wrangel Island to the east. This sea borders on the Laptev Sea to the west and the Chukchi Sea to the east.
Choibalsan is the fourth-largest city in Mongolia after Ulaanbaatar, Darkhan, and Erdenet. The name of the city was Bayan Tümen until 1941, when it was renamed after the communist leader Khorloogiin Choibalsan in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Mongolian Revolution of 1921. It is the capital of the province of Dornod. The city administrative unit's official name is Kherlen sum, with area of 281 square kilometres or 108 square miles. It is situated at the Kherlen River, at an elevation of 747 metres or 2,451 feet above sea level.
The cumulonimbus flammagenitus cloud (CbFg), also known as the pyrocumulonimbus cloud, is a type of cumulonimbus cloud that forms above a source of heat, such as a wildfire, nuclear explosion, or volcanic eruption, and may sometimes even extinguish the fire that formed it. It is the most extreme manifestation of a flammagenitus cloud. According to the American Meteorological Society’s Glossary of Meteorology, a flammagenitus is "a cumulus cloud formed by a rising thermal from a fire, or enhanced by buoyant plume emissions from an industrial combustion process."
Russkoye Ustye is a rural locality, the only inhabited locality, and the administrative center of Russko-Ustinsky Rural Okrug of Allaikhovsky District in the Sakha Republic, Russia, located 120 kilometers (75 mi) from Chokurdakh, the administrative center of the district. Its population as of the 2010 Census was 157, down from 181 recorded during the 2002 Census. For several decades during the Soviet era, it was officially called Polyarnoye (Поля́рное).
The 2010 Russian wildfires were several hundred wildfires that broke out across Russia, primarily in the west in summer 2010. They started burning in late July and lasted until early September 2010. The fires were associated with record-high temperatures, which were attributed to climate change—the summer had been the hottest recorded in Russian history—and drought.
Particulates or atmospheric particulate matter are microscopic particles of solid or liquid matter suspended in the air. The term aerosol commonly refers to the particulate/air mixture, as opposed to the particulate matter alone. Sources of particulate matter can be natural or anthropogenic. They have impacts on climate and precipitation that adversely affect human health, in ways additional to direct inhalation.
The Yakutian Laika is an ancient working dog breed that originated in the Arctic seashore of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic. Yakutian Laikas are multipurpose laikas, with many lineages able to herd reindeer, hunt game and/or pull a sled. They are registered with the Russian Kennel Club, the FCI and the AKC's Foundation Stock Service in 2017.
From 12 to 16 April 2015, a series of wildfires spread across southern Siberia, Russia. In the Republic of Khakassia, 29 people were killed and 6,000 left homeless. Further east in Zabaykalsky Krai, four people died in wildfires near Chita. Damage was also reported in Inner Mongolia.
The Batagaika crater is a thermokarst depression in the Chersky Range area. The biggest permafrost crater in the world, it administratively belongs to the Sakha Republic, Russia, and is in its Verkhoyansky District.
Dry, warm conditions in the spring set the stage for fires in Siberia in May 2018.
The 2019 Siberian wildfires began in July 2019 in poorly accessible areas of northern Krasnoyarsk Krai, Sakha Republic and Zabaykalsky Krai, all in Siberia, Russia. By the end of the month the size of the fires reached 2,600,000 hectares. As of 30 July, there had been no reported deaths or injuries due to the fires.
This is an environmental history of the 2020s. Environmental history refers to events and trends related to the natural environment and human interactions with it. Examples of human-induced events include biodiversity loss, climate change and holocene extinction.
Particulate pollution is pollution of an environment that consists of particles suspended in some medium. There are three primary forms: atmospheric particulate matter, marine debris, and space debris. Some particles are released directly from a specific source, while others form in chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Particulate pollution can be derived from either natural sources or anthropogenic processes.
The 2022 Siberian wildfires were a series of wildfires in Russia that began in Siberia in early May 2022. Fires were concentrated in the Krasnoyarsk, Altai, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Omsk, Kurgan regions, Khakassia and Sakha republics.
In 2024, far-reaching wildfires ignited and spread across large areas of Russian territory, primarily in Siberia and also in southern regions. The wildfires resulted in a burnt area of 8.8 million hectares by July 18, and carbon emissions of 6.8 megatons by July 1, equaling the combined June-July emissions of 2023 in just one month.