Ask Don Paul: Is there a link between smoky skies and climate ... - Buffalo News

Ask Don Paul: Are smoky skies and climate change linked?

Late last week, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued two air quality alerts for our region due to high ground levels of ozone being generated by heating in a stagnant air mass. On Monday, the DEC issued another Air Quality Alert for a different reason. Smoke particulate matter is being transported from Canadian wildfires, and some of it is reaching ground level, presenting a potential hazard, in particular for those with chronic lung disease. Still, it should be noted the vast majority of the smoke will stay aloft, and concentrations near the ground will not be comparable with smoke levels near the fires in Canada.

The milky haze aloft filtering some of our sunshine is readily visible in GOES satellite imagery, much of it originating from wildfires that flared up in Quebec in recent days. Steering winds have been delivering smoke aloft into our region and parts of the Great Lakes.

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Nationally, there have been more numerous episodes of smoke being transported from fires in western Canada all the way into the northeastern U.S. on upper level winds. Some of those western fires have simmered down recently. Not all of the cloud cover in this imagery is related to fire, and most bright clouds are simply ... clouds, differentiated from the milky smoke.

Why have there been so many fires this spring, and is there a tie-in to our warming climate? There has been record heat across parts of the high latitudes in Canada, particularly during May. The more rapid warming in the Arctic and northern latitudes has been underway for decades, as accurately predicted in climate models. University of Alaska climate researcher Brian Brettschneider tweeted on this topic recently.

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It appears that record heat and dry conditions can be more than sufficient to trigger these widespread fires, even when Canadian drought conditions had been only modest in eastern provinces at the start of May (Canada does not update its Drought Monitor as often as the U.S. does). More serious drought conditions have developed in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, where the most numerous fires had burned.

There is broad scientific consensus that the world has only a few years in which to act to lessen the severity of climate change impacts yet to come, writes Don Paul.

It is known that a warming climate strengthens the hot high pressure ridges, especially in northern latitudes, as pointed out by Dr. Brettschneider and other researchers. This heating-wildfire connection is not new to this year. Just 2 years ago, a town in B.C. was destroyed by wildfire sparked on the day the temperature reached 121 degrees, the hottest temperature on record in Canada.

In 2016, wildfire destroyed 2400 buildings in Ft. McMurray, Alberta.

The smoke concentrations for those in closer proximity to these fires are major health hazards, and can be deadly for those with lung disease. Last month, these hazards impacted many in western Canada and parts of the Pacific Northwest. Hot high pressure ridges have become more prevalent in this region, which many of us visualize as cooled by the Pacific. A record heat wave already affected Portland, Seattle and Vancouver in May. Such a hot ridge will be rebuilding over western Canada later this week.

What I’ve written should not be taken to mean all of these extreme events are strictly caused by the warming climate. There is still natural weather variability in play, and it is most likely that we are seeing a blend of extreme weather events being multiplied and exacerbated by the human activity-caused warming climate. In a 2021 study, researchers calculated that such extreme heat as has occurred in the Pacific Northwest, western Canada and parts of Europe would be 150 times less likely to occur without the added greenhouse gases humanity has added to the global atmosphere. Since that study, other statistical studies have shown similar calculations. The late June 2021 Northwest heat wave, which also triggered many fires, killed more than 250 in the U.S. and more than 400 in western Canada, detailed in this article.