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| Photo: Temperature Anomaly from January to May 2020 (www.berkeleyearth.org) |
1. Siberia is a huge landmass with the most variable climate (short-lived Heatwaves and cold fronts) having normal weather of -45° C and 21° C temperatures in winter and summer respectively.
2. On 20th June 2020, the mercury in the small town of Verkhoyansk, Siberia 5000 Kms east of Moscow, reached 38° C.
3. Siberian climate has warmed unseasonably in the past few months, starting with a mild winter, followed by a warm spring and hot summer.
4. A very persistent area of high pressure has kept cold weather away from Siberia combined with clear skies and the almost constant sunlight normal at high latitudes.
5. Persistent heat helped to melt snow and ice more quickly, reducing reflectivity of the ground surface i.e. darker ground absorbs more heat, warming the air more rapidly.
6. Due to global warming, Arctic is heating two to three times more than the rest of the planet, along with the rise in baseline temperature in the climate, increasing the chances of extreme heat waves.
7. The rise in baseline temperature in the Arctic increases extreme heat leading to the risk of wildfires by drying out vegetation across Siberia's forest and shrub ecosystems.
8. Such extreme temperature season and complete change in fire regimes over the last decades makes a new normal over Siberia.
9. From science of climate change to wildfires of Siberia’s forest has justified that climate is rapidly changing in the boreal and Arctic environments.
10.Increase in heat waves is thawing permafrost quickly and exposing long-frozen carbon as perfect fuel for fires, thus releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere for global warming enhancement.
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