In Siberia, one of the world's coldest regions, record high temperatures have been reported as a weeks long heat wave precipitates wildfires. On June 20, Verkhoyansk, a town north of the Arctic Circle, reached 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. This possible record-breaking number has yet to be confirmed by the World Meteorological Organization, but stands to be the hottest temperature ever recorded above the Arctic Circle.
Natalia Lapteva, a resident of Verkhoyansk, told Al-Jazeera that, “every day our family comes here to swim in our beloved river.” While residents of Verkhoyansk happily flee to their local river to bathe in the heat, many climate scientists are heeding the record numbers as warnings of accelerating global warming. In an interview, climate analyst Peter Pfleiderer recieved a question of whether the coronavirus lockdowns and its effect of reducing carbon dioxide emissions has already had a positive impact on the Arctic. He responded, “it's a reduction of emissions which means that we still emit greenhouse gases, so we are still warming the climate at the moment; it’s just a bit slower than we warmed it before. So for positive effect...we would really need to drop these emissions to zero and this is actually the only way to protect the sensitive environment of the Arctic.”
The sensitive environment that Pfleiderer refers to is the melting away of permafrost in Russia, which could release “as much as 240 billion tons of carbon by 2100” according to a group of scientists convened by the United Nations. This phenomenon, known as “arctic amplification,” is “a critical reason why the Arctic has warmed at more than twice the rate of the global mean since the mid-1990s.”
Not only does the thawing of permafrost leave a hefty impact on global warming, but it also leads to the erosion and destabilization of infrastructure and environmental habitats. “Officials [in Russia] say it was the reason a fuel tank collapsed in the northern city of Norilsk in May. More than 20,000 tons of diesel fuel soaked into the soil and flooded a river that feeds the Arctic Ocean,” according to Al-Jazeera. Repercussions for humans and wildlife alike can be felt following a spill to this degree. According to Sergey Verkhovets, the Russian coordinator for Arctic projects of the World Wildlife Fund, "the consequences of such accidents, especially in the north, reverberate for a long time. It means the death of fish, the contamination of birds' feathers and the poisoning of animals.”
These concerns also come with the news of extreme wildfires that are ravaging Siberia. “Russia’s forest fire aerial protection service says forest fires in Siberia have grown nearly fivefold over the past week,” according to The Associated Press. The consequential wildfires had burned about 7,900 square miles of Siberian territory as of June 25 compared to 6,800 square miles as of the same date a year ago. A culmination of these events in the Arctic further corroborates that the accelerated warming of our Earth has major ramifications for infrastructure, biodiversity and human life.
Hanna Ditinsky
is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is majoring in English and minoring in Economics. She was born and raised in New York City and is passionate about human rights and the future of progressivism.