Irish skies could be impacted by Canadian wildfires

Smoke from the Canadian wildfires reached Europe in the second week of June, according to The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS).

A significant episode of long-range smoke transport across the Atlantic has been forecast by CAMS since June 23, with the main volume of smoke reaching western Europe on June 26 and predicted to continue further east until June 29.

The CAMS total aerosol optical depth (AOD) forecast from June 25 clearly shows the long-range transport of smoke across the Atlantic, reaching southern Europe and the British Isles before traveling further north and east.

The Irish Mirror reports that the smoke is tipped to reach as far as Norway but the "thickest concentration is likely to move over Ireland and the UK," according to some meteorologists.

Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at CAMS, said in a statement: “Our monitoring of the scale and persistence of the wildfire emissions across Canada since early May has shown how unusual it has been when compared to the two decades of our dataset.

“The long-range transport of smoke that we are currently monitoring is not unusual, and not expected to have any significant impact on surface air quality in Europe, but it is a clear reflection of the intensity of the fires that such high values of aerosol optical depth and other pollutants associated with the plume are so high as it reaches this side of the Atlantic."

The smoke likely make for hazy skies and deep orange sunsets in Europe this week, Parrington said, according to Reuters. However, because the smoke is predicted to stay higher in the atmosphere, it's unlikely surface air quality will be impacted.

Wildfires have been blazing in Canada since May and recently caused an orange haze to settle over New York City, causing significant deterioration of New York's air quality. 

The fires have so far released 160 million tonnes of carbon, burning approximately 76,000 square kilometers across Canada, roughly the same size as Ireland. 

A study released on June 26 revealed that the fires are the largest to occur in Canada since satellite monitoring began in 2003, eclipsing the 140 million tonnes of carbon emitted during wildfires in 2014. 

The carbon released into the atmosphere during the fires is the equivalent of Indonesia's annual carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, scientists said. Indonesia has the 10th-highest carbon footprint in the world, according to a study by the European Union's Joint Research Committee.