WILDFIRE SMOKE FROM RUSSIA REACHES NORTH POLE FOR FIRST TIME EVER

I’ve been pretty hooked by recent snippets of news from around the world, as headlines highlighting unusual weather events and extreme temperatures are usually quick to grab my attention and reel me in. Maybe it’s just me, but something about this year’s climate events feel just that little bit more extreme than in the past. It’s hard to shake the feeling that we are beginning to take larger, potentially irreversible steps toward a wildly different environment than the one we currently know and have a relation with.

On the note of record-breaking and unusual firsts in the weather world, wildfire smoke has made its first appearance in the North Pole, as seen from NASA’s satellite imagery. Originating from fires within the boreal forests of Siberia the smoke has travelled over 3000km to the North and is thick enough to obscure most of the ground. Summer temperatures in Yakutia have risen almost twice as fast as the world average, which has led to melting permafrost and destructive fires. As over 3.4 million hectares of forest burns in Siberia, smoke from those fires has also made it as far as Nunavut and western Greenland. 

You can check out the original article that reeled me in here.