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Climate change
OpinionComment
David Dodwell
David Dodwell

Outside In | More lightning, more wildfires and a warmer world. Welcome to the ‘doom loop’

  • Climate-induced lightning is becoming more frequent and powerful, triggering more wildfires, particularly in Siberia, Canada and Alaska, and releasing the carbon locked in permafrost
  • Hong Kong seems likely to escape the worst of it but any complacency would be rash

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A forest fire in Siberia on July 27, 2021. The spike in wildfires is concentrated in uninhabited boreal forests like this, which store between 30 and 40 per cent of all land-based carbon. Photo: AFP
David Dodwell
As Hong Kong’s typhoon season subsides and northeasterly typhoon winds gather strength at the start of our dry season, thoughts are turning from typhoon threats to wildfires.
Research released ahead of the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai reflects rising concern over how a global surge in climate-induced lightning is set to aggravate wildfires and compound our problems in controlling global warming and curbing forest loss.

Using artificial intelligence to map wildfires, a research team led by Thomas Janssen from the University of Amsterdam found that even though wildfires have declined globally since 2001 (partly because of better control of human-started fires across Africa’s savannahs), there has been a sharp increase outside the tropics.

The wildfire increase is concentrated in the boreal forests of Siberia, Canada and Alaska encircling the Arctic – and is set to unleash the huge volumes of carbon locked in the Arctic permafrost for centuries. By 2030, wildfires are likely to increase by 14 per cent, according to the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP).

While most of these boreal forests are out of sight and mind for many people, they account for around 30 per cent of the world’s forests. They are underlain mostly by permafrost – and the trees and permafrost they are rooted in store between 30 and 40 per cent of all terrestrial carbon.

These findings coincide with research earlier this year that identified a lightning-wildfire “doom loop” – where rising global temperatures cause stronger storms, triggering more, and more powerful, “Promethean bolts” of lightning that are strikingly effective in sparking serious and sustained wildfires. Every 1 degree Celsius of warming could cause a 10 per cent increase in Promethian bolts.

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