Verkhoyansk. North West Siberia, at the so-called ‘Pole of Cold’, the point on the northern hemisphere with the lowest ever recorded temperature, -68c (- 90F), hasn’t been so cold recently.
In June, however, temperatures hit 38C (100F). This comes after reports that the Russian arctic saw rises of 5 degrees celsius on average, and up to 10C in some areas. Scientists say that this rise in temperature contributed to, and exacerbated the 246 fires that have torn across the Russian heartland covering 1,400 sqkm (540 sq miles), with these temperatures drying out the Taiga and turning it into a tinderbox.
These fires create an ever worsening problem, with 59 millions tonnes of carbon released already this year from fires in the region. This in turn accelerates the rise in global temperature, contributing to such weather ‘anomalies’ which will become all the more common as the earth heats up.
Climatologist Martin Siegert added yesterday - ‘what happens in the arctic doesn’t stay in the arctic’, and as Siberia heats up, we will start to see the effects ‘ripple out’ ‘across the globe’. The only issue? We don’t yet know what these effects will be.
However, the siberian Taiga is one of the largest carbon biosinks on the planet, and as fires rage across the face of the great plane, we can only know it is not good news for a planet where no major nation has taken any substantive action to try and halt the rapidly rising global temperatures behind this inferno.
Alfie Davis
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