Arctic News: forest fires

Showing posts with label forest fires. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Emissions are not falling

Temperature rise

For many years, alarms have been raised about the accelerating temperature rise. Forest fires and methane releases in the Arctic contribute strongly to the acceleration of the temperature rise and to the danger that the clouds tipping point may get crossed soon, as discussed in an earlier post.

The image below shows that the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was 22.54°C on July 20, 2026, a record high for the time of year and 1.34°C higher than 1979-2000 (which is not pre-industrial). The inset shows temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on July 20, 2026, with the Northern Hemisphere highlighted.

On July 25, 2026, the world (60°S–60°N, 0–360°E) sea surface temperature was 21.16°C, a record high temperature for the time of year and 0.96°C higher than 1982-2010, a record high anomaly versus 1982-2010 (which is not pre-industrial). The globe (inset top right) shows sea surface temperature anomalies versus 1991-2020 on July 25, 2026.

Ocean heat in the Northern Hemisphere constitutes the primary cause of Arctic sea ice decline, as discussed in earlier post such as this one. In a publication issued July 13, 2026, NOAA announced El Niño to be present, adding that the 2026 El Niño will strengthen through the end of the year. The 2026 El Niño, on top of the accelerating temperature rise, threatens to contribute to loss of virtually all Arctic sea ice in September 2026, as well as loss of virtually all Antarctic sea ice in early 2027, as also illustrated by the sea surface temperature anomaly forecast below for January 2027, a time of very rapid melting of Antarctic sea ice.

[ image from earlier post ]

Clearly, politicians must take drastic action that includes action to increase resilience and action to reduce emissions caused by people. Yet, is effective action being taken? Sadly, it appears that politicians are not taking the necessary action and that - as a result - emissions are rising.

[ from earlier post, discussed on facebook ]

Greenhouse gases rising

Greenhouse gas concentrations have been rising since 1750, as illustrated by the image on the right. Carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide have been rising rapidly, while methane has been rising even more rapidly.

More methane threatens to erupt from the seafloor, as discussed in earlier posts such as this one and this one.

The 2026 El Niño is strengthening and sea surface temperatures are already at a record high for the time of year, as illustrated by the image below.

Ocean heat threatens to destabilize sediments at the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean, causing massive eruptions of methane contained in those sediments in the form of methane hydrates and free gas held underneath these hydrates.

Concentrations of gases

The image below, dated July 21, 2026, shows carbon dioxide concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. While concentrations should be coming down at this time of year due to seasonal changes, recent concentrations are very high, with one recent flask reading exceeding 442 parts per million.

The image below, dated July 21, 2026, shows carbon monoxide concentrations at Mauna Loa, Hawaii. There is a huge spread in recent readings, which may reflect forest fires.

The image below, dated July 21, 2026, shows hourly average methane concentrations at Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow, Alaska.

The image below, dated July 21, 2026, shows hourly average nitrous oxide concentrations at Utqiaġvik, formerly known as Barrow, Alaska.

Sadly, the images indicate that concentrations of greenhouse gases are not falling, they are rising instead. Forest fires are striking across the globe, which contributes to forests turning from carbon sinks into carbon sources, as discussed in posts such as this one. Furthermore, forest fires come with huge releases of carbon monoxide that deplete hydroxyl, in turn extending the lifetime of methane, as discussed in an earlier post.

Fossil fuel subsidies and investments

Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies are planning to extract more natural gas. The IEA estimates that around $1.2 trillion is set to be invested in oil, natural gas and coal in 2026. Natural gas investment is projected to rise to $330 billion, the highest level in a decade.

The IMF describes two different types of fossil fuel subsidies. Explicit subsidies (when the retail price is below a fuel’s supply cost) and implicit subsidies (when the retail price fails to include external costs, inclusive of the standard consumption tax). External costs include contributions to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions, local health damages (primarily premature deaths) through the release of harmful local pollutants like fine particulates, and traffic congestion, accident, and road damage externalities associated with the use of road fuels.

Conclusion

The situation is dire and unacceptably dangerous, and the precautionary principle necessitates the danger to be acknowledged, while facilitating rapid, comprehensive and effective action to reduce the damage and to improve the outlook, where needed in combination with a Climate Emergency Declaration, as described in posts such as in this 2022 post and this 2025 post, and as discussed in the Climate Plan group.

Links

• The 2026 El Niño

https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-2026-el-nino.html

• NOAA - ENSO: Recent Evolution, Current Status and Predictions (issued July 13, 2026)

https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

• Climate Reanalyzer
https://climatereanalyzer.org

• IMF - Fossil Fuel Subsidies (update April 22, 2026)

https://www.imf.org/en/topics/climate-change/energy-subsidies

• IEA - World Energy Investment report 2026

https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2026/executive-summary (image)

https://www.iea.org/news/impacts-of-middle-east-conflict-set-to-reshape-energy-investment-plans-as-disruptions-put-focus-on-security (text)

• NOAA - Global Monitoring Laboratory - data viewer
https://gml.noaa.gov/dv/iadv

• Transforming Society
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2022/10/transforming-society.html

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

• Climate Emergency Declaration
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climate-emergency-declaration.html

Friday, September 11, 2020

Forest fires cause high emissions in Oregon

The image below shows a forecast of very high carbon monoxide levels in Oregon, as high as 86,299 ppb on September 11, 2020, 21:00 UTC.

The map below shows the location of these peak levels at the red marker.

On September 12, 2020, a horrifying peak level of 126,728 ppb is forecast to occur at that same spot at 21:00 UTC.

As the image below shows, sulfur dioxide levels are forecast to be as high as 5056.4 µg/m³ on September 12, 2020, at 23:00 UTC.

On September 13, 2020, very high carbon dioxide levels are forecast to cover a huge area, with peak levels as high as 82,715 ppb at 07:00 UTC, as the image below shows.

The situation is dire and calls for immediate, comprehensive and effective action, as described in the Climate Plan.

Links

• Climate Plan
https://arctic-news.blogspot.com/p/climateplan.html

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Arctic Sea Ice at Record Low for Time of Year

As temperatures keep rising, should the IPCC raise the alarm?

Some 1,750 jurisdictions in 30 countries have now declared a climate emergency, according to this post dated July 8, 2020. The United Nations does acknowledge the Climate Emergency, but its description is sourced from the IPCC Global Warming of 1.5°C report that was approved back in 2018. A lot has happened since, as described in many posts at Arctic-news. When a state of emergency is declared, doesn't one expect such a declaration to result in action, complete with updates on the effectiveness of the action?

Described below are some events taking place right now.

Arctic Sea Ice at Record Low for Time of Year

Arctic sea ice looks set to reach an all-time record low in September 2020.

In an earlier post, Paul Beckwith describes a Blue Ocean Event (BOE) and some of the consequences of the changes taking place in the Arctic. A BOE occurs when sea ice extent gets below 1 million km², which is important regarding the amount of sunlight absorbed/reflected in the Arctic (albedo feedback).

[ from earlier post ]

Arctic sea ice extent on July 20, 2020, was well below the minimum of the 1979-1990 average (the orange line among the blue lines on the image below).

If it continues on its current trajectory, Arctic sea ice may well be gone altogether in September 2020.

A BOE is one of the many tipping points that threaten to get crossed in the Arctic.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

As illustrated by the image on the right, sea ice is getting very thin, which threatens the latent heat tipping point to be crossed, meaning there is no buffer of sea ice left underneath the surface of the sea ice to absorb ocean heat.

Furthermore, the temperature rise in the Arctic is accelerating and the Arctic Ocean is getting very hot, threatening that the methane hydrates tipping point will get crossed.

The navy.mil animation below run on July 20, 2020, shows the fall in sea ice thickness over 30 days (last 8 frames are forecasts for July 21-28, 2020).

The combination image below illustrates the speed at which Arctic sea ice is disappearing, with sea ice thickness shown in meters from left to right at June 1, June 18, July 1 and July 18, 2020.

Meanwhile, fires and smoke are visible at a distance of as little as 1970 km or 1224 miles from the North Pole.

The image below shows open water on the edge of the sea ice, north of Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago, where the thickest sea ice used to be located.

Alarming acceleration of heating continues

The image below shows the global temperature rise through to June 2020.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

The red trend supports fears that the 2°C above preindustrial threshold has already been crossed this year, while loss of the aerosol masking effect and an emerging El Niño could trigger a huge further temperature rise.

Global temperature anomalies are typically lower in June (yellow circles) than the annual anomaly. The Copernicus image below shows twelve-month averages of global-mean surface air temperature anomalies relative to 1981-2010.

The shape of current anomalies is very similar to the peak reached around 2016. This is alarming because the peak around 2016 was reached under El Niño conditions, whereas the current temperatures are reached under conditions that are leaning toward La Niña, as illustrated by the images below.

In conclusion, one may wonder how much stronger the temperature rise will be once El Niño conditions do arrive.

[ click on images to enlarge ]

Furthermore, one may wonder how much current temperatures are elevated by a decrease in emissions due to COVID-19 restrictions, which in turn makes one wonder how much higher the temperature will be when the aerosol masking effect will fall away even further as the world phases out coal-fired power plants, bunker oil for shipping, etc. Guy McPherson concludes that a 1°C rise in global-average temperature will occur within a few days or weeks after industrial activity is reduced by as little as 20%.

Very high sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic Ocean

Sea surface temperature anomalies in the Arctic Ocean are very high. As discussed in a recent post, sea surface temperatures in the Bering Strait were as much as 15.1°C or 27.2°F hotter than 1981-2011 on June 20, 2020 (in Norton Sound, Alaska, at the green circle).

As the image below shows, the sea surface temperature at green circle used to be 0.3°C (32.6°F). It was 12°C (53.6°F) on July 18, 2020.

Much of the Arctic Ocean is quite shallow, making that the water can warm up very quickly during summer heat peaks and heat can reach the seafloor, which comes with the risk that heat will penetrate cracks in sediments at the seafloor. Melting of ice in such cracks can lead to abrupt destabilization of methane hydrates contained in sediments.

Very high peak methane levels

Ominously, as the 2020 Siberian heatwave continues, very high peak methane levels show up over the Arctic Ocean. The NOAA 20 satellite recorded a peak methane level of 2728 ppb at 399 mb on the afternoon of July 16, 2020.

The MetOp-1 satellite recorded a peak methane level of 2726 ppb on the afternoon of July 16, 2020. Also, a mean methane level of 1897 ppb was recorded at 469 mb and a mean methane level of 1908 ppb at 293 mb.