Surviving the winter, mysterious zombie fire returns to threaten 'melting' the Arctic

"We have looked at satellite data and there are indications that zombie fire may be returning," said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist and natural fire specialist at the Agency. Monitoring the European Union's Atmosphere, said.

These hotspots - which have not been confirmed by ground measurement methods - were highly concentrated in large fire areas last summer.

The year 2019 is the year of many large and unprecedented fires occurring throughout parts of Siberia and Alaska.

Zombie fire is a kind of fire constantly burning underground.

May 6/2019 is hot record time within 150 years, the fire is estimated to be emitted 50 million tonnes CO ₂ into the atmosphere, equivalent to the amount of CO ₂ emitted annually by Sweden .

"We will likely see the cumulative effect of last year's Arctic fire on the climate this year, and it could lead to long-term large-scale fires in the same region," he said. Parrington said.

The risk of fire is higher when the weather is hot and the humidity is low. Europe this year recorded record high temperatures in March and April this year.

" Zombie fire is a type of fire constantly burning underground and will flare up on the surface after a period of time, " said Mike Waddington, an ecosystem expert at McMaster University in Canada.

Coal buried deep in organic soil or peat soils can burn for weeks, months and even years later.

Alaskan scientists watching the same scene.

"We have noted more and more the phenomenon of burning still between the cold and wet weather of winter, and continue to re-export in the following spring," the Association of Fire Science in Alaska - consisting of four schools University and research institutes write in the spring 2020 publication.

Since 2005, scientists in Alaska have recorded 39 such "persistent flames" . Combining those observations with satellite data, the team found that most flames were too small to be identified by satellite imagery. But in addition, there were also large enough to observe from the air.

Last year's major fires were caused in part by record high temperatures. Some areas in Siberia and Alaska are 10 degrees warmer than they were in previous years.

Increasing temperatures in Greendland melt ice kilometers long, causing the melting of 600 billion tons of ice a year - accounting for 40% of the total sea level rise in 2019.