Arctic Wildfires Show Approach of New Climate Feedback Loop: In two of the world’s warmest years, fires in the northernmost
regions incinerated an area of forest and peatland bigger than Denmark,
and almost as big as Slovakia, to release 150 million tons of carbon
into the atmosphere, concludes a peer-reviewed study released last week by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
And
the scientists warn there could be an exponential relationship between
even tiny advances in temperature and the area at risk from fire. In
2019 and 2020, fires in the Siberian Arctic scorched 47 million
hectares, or 47 thousand square kilometres of land. This adds up to 44%
of all the area burned in the region in the last 40 years.
The
Arctic soils are a natural reservoir of vast amounts of stored carbon.
But as the global thermometer rises, once-waterlogged and frozen
peatland dries and becomes potentially flammable. A few lightning
strikes, a blaze in the boreal forest, and what had once been a carbon
sink becomes a carbon source, as centuries of stored soil carbon goes up
in smoke, methane, and carbon dioxide.
In the course of what used
to be a normal year, Arctic permafrost and tundra soils are calculated
to absorb 100 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere, the study
says. In just two very recent years, wildfire actually liberated half as
much again.
Inevitably, a greater burden of atmospheric carbon
means a warmer world, which in turn means an ever greater danger of peat
and timber fires in the Siberian and Canadian Arctic, to drive global
heating to ever more dangerous levels.
Content warning: Reindexing Support
Smith said she was going adjust AISH and other income supports for inflation, going forward.
Canada’s deputy prime minister says she is looking forward to working with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, even though the provincial politician has taken a combative tone toward the federal government.
Yesterday, I wrote about the strategic imperative underlying Premier Smith’s plan to pivot toward the center-right where the bulk of Alberta voters can be found. Today, fresh off her by-election win, she executed.
Today, she released mandate letters https://open.alberta.ca/publications/mandate-letters-to-ministers-2022 for six of her Cabinet ministers. (Keep in mind, she has many, many Cabinet ministers, so this is partial transparency at best. But it is something). A mandate letter is the Premier/Prime Minister’s marching orders for each member of their Cabinet, setting out priorities they want to see accomplished.
Right now Rachel Notley is leading in the polls, but she will have a harder time holding onto that lead if she’s facing this PC-version of Danielle Smith than the Wild Rose/Freedom Convey version we’ve seen up to this point.