Europe experiences significant transport of smoke from Canada wildfires.
Article continues below
The significant wildfire activity witnessed in Canada in May has continued and intensified throughout June, generating record levels of emissions, with significant long-range transport of smoke crossing the Atlantic and reaching Europe.
The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) has been closely monitoring the situation, tracking active fire locations, fire radiative power and emissions, and forecasting the impacts of the resulting smoke on the atmosphere.
The record levels of emissions generated by the intense wildfire activity across Canada in May and June are having a major impact on air quality, both in Canada and further afield.
According to CAMS data, fire radiative power (FRP) for the country as a whole in the first three weeks of June was significantly higher than the 2003-2022 mean, with estimated carbon emissions at over 100 megatonnes for the month.
Emissions levels from the start of the year until the first week of May remained close to the 2003-2022 mean, but then quickly rose to significantly higher than any previous year in the CAMS record.
The impact on air quality has been far reaching, especially across North America.
Smoke from the Canadian wildfires reached Europe in the second week of June, and a significant episode of long-range smoke transport across the Atlantic has been forecast by CAMS since the 23 June with the main volume of smoke reaching western Europe on 26 June and predicted to continue further east until 29 June.
The CAMS total aerosol optical depth (AOD) forecast from 25 June clearly shows the long-range transport of smoke across the Atlantic, reaching southern Europe and the British Isles before travelling further north and east.
Europe is not the only region impacted by the smoke.
CAMS AOD analyses for 1-26 June show significant smoke transport from the Quebec wildfires southwards around 8 June, where it significantly impacted surface air quality in New York, Philadelphia and other major population centres in the northeastern United States, where more than 75 million people were under air quality alerts in the first week of June.
According to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, as of June 26 there were 492 active fires across the country, including 257 burning out of control.
The wildfires in Quebec, which developed in early June with several reported incidents of pyroconvection (strong and deep convection that can sometimes occur within a fire plume), are currently receiving a lot of media attention due to their impact on air quality – both in Canada, where air quality in Montreal is currently ranked as the worst in the world, and in the neighbouring U.S., with millions across North America being advised to wear high-grade masks outdoors due to the smoke.
The intensity of the Quebec wildfires is reflected in CAMS fire radiative power (FRP) data for June, which are significantly higher that the 2003-2022 mean values for the same period.
Reflecting the high FRP values, the CAMS wildfire carbon emissions estimates for Quebec for May-June are also high. At around 3.5 megatonnes, these emissions are already the highest since 2013, even though the full figures for June have yet to be calculated.
In Ontario too, the intensity of the wildfires in June is reflected in the FRP values, which were significantly higher than the mean values in the first 26 days of June. Estimated carbon emissions from the wildfires in Ontario are already the highest since 2003.
As of the morning of 27 June, there were 32 active fires in Saskatchewan, according to the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency (SPSA). In total, the province has experienced 249 wildfires this year, compared to a five-year average of 185 wildfires.
Meanwhile, British Colombia currently has 103 active wildfires, according to the British Colombia Wildfire Service, including the Donnie Creek wildfire, which is now the largest recorded in the province’s history.
Alberta, which declared a state of emergency on 6 May currently has 83 active wildfires, 10 of which are still out of control.
In British Colombia and Saskatchewan, the estimated carbon emissions for May-June are already the highest on record, while in Alberta the emissions over the two-month period, estimated at just over 20 megatonnes, are the highest since the extreme fires experienced in May 2019, in which over 880,000 hectares were burned. ■