The smoke from the extensive forest fires that affected Canada during the spring and summer has now reached Europe.
At the same time, carbon dioxide emissions from the fires set a new record.
In recent months, Canada has been hit by record-breaking forest fires, which spread large amounts of smoke over, among other things, the North American east coast and the Midwest. In major cities, such as New York and Chicago, air quality has deteriorated to the point where residents have been forced to wear masks.
Now the smoke has also reached Europe, according to a press release from the EU’s climate monitoring service Copernicus.
On Monday, smoke moved in over Portugal and Spain, and the smoke is expected to continue to travel over western Europe until at least Thursday.
However, the smoke is not believed to be as noticeable to people in Europe as it has been in North America, as it travels at a higher altitude.
“This means it will look more like hazy skies with red-orange sunsets,” writes Copernicus in an email reply to Politico.
The forest fires in Canada have so far released record amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – calculated for Canada – and in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec the intensity of the fires increased even more on June 21 and 22, according to the Copernicus press release. This in turn led to the smoke being able to spread all the way to Europe.
Politico reports that the fires since May have released as much carbon dioxide as the Netherlands emits in total in an entire year. That the smoke reaches Europe is “a clear reflection of the intensity of the fires”, writes Copernicus.