Tag: Siberia

Why it’s so damn hot in the Arctic right now

Siberia’s triple-digit heat wave and wildfires are a glimpse into the future of the Arctic

The Arctic is continuing to swelter in a heat wave, as temperatures around the Arctic Ocean this week top 93 degrees Fahrenheit.

The recent heat follows an even more stunning data point: Last month, Verkhoyansk, Russia, hit a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. Researchers are still working to confirm the result, which may be recognized as a record high for the Arctic Circle. This is a town that holds the record for the coldest temperature above the Arctic Circle, -90 degrees Fahrenheit in 1892.

“That is a fantastical degree,” said Roman Vilfand, head of Russia’s weather service, during a press conference this week. Continue reading.

Huge wildfires in the Arctic and far North send a planetary warning

The planet’s far North is burning. This summer, over 600 wildfires have consumed more than 2.4 million acres of forest across Alaska. Fires are also raging in northern Canada. In Siberia, choking smoke from 13 million acres – an area nearly the size of West Virginia – is blanketing towns and cities.

Fires in these places are normal. But, as studies here at the University of Alaska’s International Arctic Research Center show, they are also abnormal.

My colleagues and I are examining the complex relationships between warming climate, increasing fire and shifting patterns of vegetation. Using locally focused climate data and models from the Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning, the research group I help coordinate, we are finding evidence that is deeply worrying – not just for those of us who live within the fires’ pall of smoke, but for the world.

View the complete August 14 article by Nancy Fresco, SNAP Coordinator, Research Faculty, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks on the Conversation website here.