Wildfire smoke · Eastern Siberia and the Arctic
Smoke from Yakutia reaches the North Pole
Sakha, or Yakutia, is the largest and coldest region of Russia, most of it larch forest over permafrost. In 2021, after a hot, dry spring, fires burned there from May to September. By August the smoke covered an area thousands of kilometres across, over Yakutsk and far beyond: in the first week of the month it travelled more than 3,000 km north and reached the North Pole, a first in recorded history according to NASA's satellite team. [N1] [N2]
31 July – 16 August 2021 · Sakha (Yakutia), Russia, and the Arctic Ocean · CAMS, ERA5
3,000+km
From Yakutia to the North Pole
The first time wildfire smoke is known to have reached the pole.N2
1.05
Smoke optical depth near the pole, 6 August
CAMS's organic matter at 89.25° N; on most days of that summer it was below 0.1.
5.73
Over Yakutsk, 12 August
CAMS's daily organic-matter optical depth: almost no sunlight reaching the ground directly.
505Mt CO₂
Emitted by Yakutia's fires by early August
A record for the region, with weeks of the season left (Copernicus, as reported).N2
What happened
Fires in the boreal forest are natural, but in 2020 the Arctic's fires released more carbon than in any year since satellite estimates began in 2003, most of it in eastern Siberia, and 2021 was again among the highest. In 2021 Yakutia had a hot, dry early summer; fires started after the snow melted in May and spread through the larch forest, much of it far from any road.N1N3
Smoke filled the valleys around Yakutsk for weeks, and was reported over towns as far as Mongolia, Nunavut and western Greenland. In early August a part of it was carried north, across the Laptev and East Siberian Seas, to the pole.N2
How the smoke reached the pole
Smoke from a large fire rises to a few kilometres and travels with the wind there. The map below shows the winds at 850 hPa, about 1.5 km up, on 5 August; the next day CAMS shows the plume stretched from Yakutia over the pole. At 89.25° N its optical depth reached 1.05 on 6 August, twenty times its usual value.
Yakutsk under the smoke
5.73AOD
CAMS's organic-matter optical depth over Yakutsk on 12 August. An optical depth of 1 already dims the sun noticeably; at more than 5, almost no direct sunlight reaches the ground.
| Day | Smoke AOD | PM2.5, µg m⁻³ |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 31 | 1.14 | 734 |
| Aug 1 | 2.83 | 1,324 |
| Aug 11 | 2.53 | 2,983 |
| Aug 12 | 5.73 | 3,590 |
| Aug 13 | 3.91 | 2,118 |
CAMS's daily PM2.5 in the grid cell around Yakutsk passes 1,000 µg m⁻³ on six days, against the WHO's daily guideline of 15. These are model values for a cell full of fires; a station in the city would measure less on most days, but the smoke was, by any measure, extreme.
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References
News
- N1NASA Earth Observatory. An unusually smoky fire season in Sakha. 10 August 2021.The fire season in Sakha and its smoke seen from space.
- N2The Moscow Times. Siberian wildfire smoke reaches North Pole in historic first. 9 August 2021.The smoke at the North Pole, its extent and Copernicus's emission estimate.
- N3Copernicus Climate Change Service. European State of the Climate 2021: Arctic wildfires. April 2022.Arctic wildfire emissions in 2020 and 2021 in context.