The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate – “Digging back into the climate record makes it clear how last year’s conditions contributed to an unusually brutal fire season, Byrne says; 2023 was especially warm and especially dry, both of which allow fires to spread more quickly and burn more intensely. A few regions were especially notable in the blazes, like parts of Quebec, a typically wet area in the east of Canada that saw half the normal precipitation. These fires were the ones generating smoke that floated down the east coast of the US. But overall, what was so significant about the 2023 fire season was just how widespread the fire-promoting conditions were….” Byrne says.
Emissions from 2023’s Canadian wildfires reached 647 million metric tons of carbon, according to the study published today in Nature. If the fires were a country, they’d rank as the fourth-highest emitter, following only China, the US, and India. The sky-high emissions from the fires reveals how human activities are pushing natural ecosystems to a place that’s making things extremely tougher for climate mitigation and efforts.
