| 2021 Russian wildfires | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Season | |
← 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]
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.
Ulaanbaatar is the capital and most populous city of Mongolia. It has a population of 1.6 million, and it is the coldest capital city in the world by average yearly temperature. The municipality is located in north central Mongolia at an elevation of about 1,300 metres (4,300 ft) in a valley on the Tuul River. The city was founded in 1639 as a nomadic Buddhist monastic centre, changing location 28 times, and was permanently settled at its modern location in 1778.
The Yakuts or Sakha are a Turkic ethnic group native to North Siberia, primarily the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation. They also inhabit some districts of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. They speak Yakut, which belongs to the Siberian branch of the Turkic languages.
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.
Aldan is a gold-mining town and the administrative center of Aldansky District of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located in the Aldan Highlands, in the Aldan River basin, on the stream Orto-Sala near its mouth in the Seligdar River, about 470 kilometers (290 mi) south of the republic's capital of Yakutsk. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 21,275.
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."
The 2010 Northern Hemisphere summer heat waves included severe heat waves that impacted most of the United States, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, Hong Kong, North Africa and the European continent as a whole, along with parts of Canada, Russia, Indochina, South Korea and Japan during July 29, 2010. The first phase of the global heatwaves was caused by a moderate El Niño event, which lasted from June 2009 to May 2010. This lasted only from April 2010 to June 2010 and caused only moderate above-average temperatures in the affected regions, but it also set new record high temperatures for most of the area affected in the Northern Hemisphere.
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 refers to the particulate/air mixture, as opposed to the particulate matter alone, though it is sometimes defined as a subset of aerosol terminology. 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 a newly developed dog breed originating from the Yakutia region of Siberia. In ancient times, the dogs were employed by the native Yakute people as universal animals. 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 Fédération Cynologique Internationale, 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.
On the morning of 1 July 2016, an Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft configured for aerial firefighting and belonging to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations crashed near Lake Baikal northeast of Irkutsk in Siberia, Russia. All ten crew members were killed.
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.
The East Siberian Lowland, also known as Yana-Kolyma Lowland, is a vast plain in North-eastern Siberia, Russia. The territory of the lowland is one of the Great Russian Regions. Administratively, it is a part of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia).
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.