Wildfire smoke from fires raging in Siberia is spilling into Southcentral Alaska skies, creating a haze that is lingering over the region, according to the National Weather Service.
Fires in Siberia and eastern Russia have released a record-breaking amount of carbon into the atmosphere as peat soils burn, according to NASA. With permafrost thawing and temperatures rising in the Arctic, fires have burned almost nonstop in the Arctic Circle since April. Smoke from the fires began spreading over Alaska in early July, said Patrick Doll with the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office. About a month ago, a squall line of thunderstorms from the northern Siberian coast all the way down through the Kamchatka Peninsula caused multiple lightning strikes visible on satellite imagery, he said. The next day, puffs of smoke and a growing smoke plume became visible.