Update: Sorry folks! I didn’t realize until just now that I didn’t actually link to Dr. Mass’s website! So here is his full analysis of where the smoke is coming from.

Thanks to an excellent blog post by Cliff Mass we know where this smoke is coming from…

Fires in the Russian far east and Asia.

This image from NASA is amazing showing the fires:

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The fires are raging as the Taiga has apparently burned more this year than even the record fires in 2010. The difference is now they are in the great expanses of Siberia, so while few people are threatened… Actually fighting them is near impossible. Which means all points East including Japan, Alaska and North America with continue to see this smoke whenever the weather pattern brings it over us for weeks or months to come.

It is also a reminder that whatever we ship over there to be consumed… Say… coal… Will be coming straight back at us. And not only in terms of the pollution, but also setting ourselves up for more warmth in the North… More fires…. More smoke.

And since we are onto global warming and climate change. Here is the latest image from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado showing the Arctic sea ice is tracking below 2007 levels which set the record low in September of that year (it basically tied it again in 2011).

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3 thoughts on “The smoke is Russian

  1. Blame the Russians!  That makes a lot more sense than Colorado – I couldn’t figure out how smoke from Colorado could reach here.

  2. We can ship them some rain clouds from the Kootenays. The Mtns around my house look like a Vietnamese Jungle.

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