{"id":826,"date":"2023-08-31T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/?p=826"},"modified":"2023-08-28T22:08:23","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T22:08:23","slug":"n-w-t-fires-have-released-97-megatonnes-of-carbon-says-european-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/2023\/08\/31\/n-w-t-fires-have-released-97-megatonnes-of-carbon-says-european-agency\/","title":{"rendered":"N.W.T. fires have released 97 megatonnes of carbon, says European agency"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Territory on track to beat 2014 record for how much land has burned<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wildfires in the N.W.T have emitted 97 megatonnes of carbon into the air so far this year \u2014 277 times more than what was caused by humans in the territory back in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark Parrington, a senior scientist working at the European Union\u2019s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), said the N.W.T. has contributed the most of all the provinces and territories to Canada\u2019s total wildfire emissions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the start of the year up until Aug. 23, wildfires across Canada have emitted 327 megatonnes of carbon into the air according to CAMS data. (For context, one megatonne is a million tonnes.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than a quarter of that has been generated by wildfires in the N.W.T., which began burning back in May and have displaced tens of thousands of residents across 10 communities this summer \u2014 including the capital city of Yellowknife. The fires have caused damage so far in K\u00e1t\u0142\u2019odeeche First Nation, Enterprise and Behchok\u01eb\u0300. Hay River and K\u00e1t\u0142\u2019odeeche First Nation have been displaced twice by wildfire in a matter of months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Houses in Enterprise, N.W.T., that were burned by wildfire. (Tyson Koschik\/CBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Canada\u2019s North is warming faster<\/a> than other parts of the planet, leading to more severe wildfires. It\u2019s also the reason why N.W.T., infrastructure is jeopardized<\/a> by thawing permafrost, traditional ways of life are threatened as species come and go<\/a>, and one N.W.T. community is at risk of washing away.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe can all unequivocally agree this is climate change at the very root of this,\u201d said Jessica Davey-Quantick, a territorial wildfire information officer, during a press conference last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to see more active fire behaviour, more extreme weather, more drought-like conditions \u2014 all of those factors have kind of combined. But it\u2019s really hard to say that there\u2019s one culprit that led it to communities this year, when it didn\u2019t in previous years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nerdy part<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s walk through the math: 97.09 megatonnes of carbon emitted as of Aug. 23 this year is equivalent to 356.32 megatonnes of carbon dioxide. You can convert the rate of carbon into carbon dioxide equivalent by multiplying the figure by 3.67.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s important to make that conversion because the territory reports its annual human-caused emissions in the form of carbon dioxide equivalent \u2014 which also take into account other greenhouse gases, like methane and nitrous oxide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, the territory emitted 1.287 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, we can compare those two numbers equally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The carbon dioxide equivalent emitted by wildfires this year (356.32 megatonnes) is 277 times more than what was emitted by humans in 2021 (1.287 megatonnes).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does it all compare to 2014?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The N.W.T.\u2019s vast boreal forest usually sequesters more carbon<\/a> than it emits \u2014 except during big fire years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up until now, 2014 has been considered the territory\u2019s worst wildfire year. According to CAMS data up until Aug. 23, the current wildfire season has not quite eclipsed 2014 in terms of emissions. (It has, however, if you compare it to Natural Resources Canada data which says fires that year emitted roughly 94.5 megatonnes of carbon<\/a> in 2014).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Drone aerial still photo of houses in Enterprise, N.W.T., on Aug. 24 that were burned by wildfire. (Tyson Koschik\/CBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

According to N.W.T. Fire, 2.96 million hectares of land have burned in fires so far this year, but is calculating an updated figure. The agency said the territory is well on it\u2019s way to beating the record set back in 2014 of 3.4 million hectares burned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wildfires emit more than just carbon<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAMS monitors where wildfires are around the world and how intensely they\u2019re burning. It also tracks emissions and forecasts the effect smoke has on the atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parrington said they\u2019re able to do this using meteorology and satellite imagery. It\u2019s important to monitor wildfire emissions, he said, because of the effects it has on air quality and human health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFires release far more pollutants into the atmosphere than the usual activities like road  transport, energy production, industry,\u201d he said. \u201cAs well as the carbon gases, there\u2019s a lot of very harmful and hazardous constituents of smoke, including particulate matter, things like benzene, which a lot of people might associate only as an industrial pollutant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When fires stop and the wind shifts, Parrington said air quality improves \u2014 but pollution from wildfires can persist for a long time if it settles on rivers and water bodies too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The link between fires and climate change<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Weather Attribution, a U.K. based group that estimates the contribution of climate change to individual extreme weather events, recently released a study<\/u><\/a> that found record-setting fires in Qu\u00e9bec earlier this year were made twice as likely because of human-caused warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group says it\u2019s exploring options to study wildfires in other parts of Canada, but Yan Boulanger, a forest ecology scientist with Natural Resources Canada and one of the Qu\u00e9bec study\u2019s authors, said its findings can be extrapolated to Canada\u2019s North.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A member of B Company, 2nd Battalion, Royal 22e R\u00e9giment, conducts Type III firefighting operations in the vicinity of Hay River, N.W.T., in support of Operation LENTUS on Aug. 22. (Corporal Jonathan King\/Canadian Armed Forces)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Qu\u00e9bec is one of the areas of Canada that\u2019s least affected by climate change, he explained, yet climate change still played a very big role in the fires there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that climate change is having a bigger effect on British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories and Yukon, Boulanger said wildfires in those provinces and territories are probably made more than twice as likely by climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are very, very conservative estimates,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, Boulanger said he\u2019s shocked by the record number of people displaced across the N.W.T. and the evacuations that have taken place in Qu\u00e9bec, B.C., Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Yukon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Indigenous people are over-represented among evacuees, and they will continue to be over-represented in the future because their communities are typically in very fire-prone environments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Weather Attribution\u2019s Qu\u00e9bec analysis has not yet been subject to scientific peer review, but it is based on peer-reviewed modelling. In the past, the research group has subjected its analyses to review and has not had to change its findings<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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