The map shows land surface temperature anomalies from March 19 to June 20, 2020. Red colors show areas that were hotter than average for the same period from 2003-2018; blues were colder than average. Data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua satellite. (Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory)
Excerpt from this story from the
Washington Post:
On June 20, 2020, the temperature in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk soared to a searing 100.4 degrees — more befitting of the Mediterranean than far-east Russia. Scientists with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have now confirmed the measurement is the Arctic’s hottest temperature on record.
“This new Arctic record is one of a series of observations reported to the WMO Archive of Weather and Climate Extremes that sound the alarm bells about our changing climate,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas in a statement.
Last year, 2020, was a record-breaking year across the globe, ranking in the top three warmest years on record. The Arctic, which has been warming more than twice as fast as the global average, experienced an abnormally hot January-to-June time period that year. During those six months, monthly temperatures in Siberia were as high as 18.5 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) above average.
The warm temperatures helped fuel a large number of wildfires in the region, which started earlier than normal in 2020. Around half of the fires burned through areas with thawed peat soil — decomposed organic matter abundant in carbon. Fires on peatlands can release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. In June and July, fires in Arctic Russia released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any entire previous fire season since records began in 2003.
Shortly after the temperature spike, researchers determined Siberia’s anomalously warm months, as well as Verkhoyansk’s record-breaking temperature in June, were virtually impossible without human-induced climate change. Climate change made the prolonged heat from January to June at least 600 times more likely; such extended heat in the region would occur less than once in 80,000 years without the observed increase in temperatures.
