the Eldorado on the Upper West Side of Manhattan apartment building is seen in the background as a jogger runs past the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park October 21, 2019 in New York, and (R)
people walk in Central Park as smoke from wildfires in Canada cause hazy conditions in New York City on June 7, 2023.. Smoke from Canadian wildfires have shrouded the US East Coast in a record-breaking smog, forcing cities to issue air pollution warnings and thousands of Canadians to evacuate their homes. The devastating fires have displaced more than 20,000 people and scorched about 3.8 million hectares (9,390,005 acres) of land. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described this wildfire season as the country’s worst ever. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
OSLO, June 9, 2023 (AFP) – Smoke from Canadian wildfires has been detected thousands of kilometres away in Norway this week, the Scandinavian country’s Climate and Environmental Research Institute NILU said on Friday.
“Very weak” concentrations of smoke particles have been detected since Monday, in particular at the Birkenes observatory in southern Norway, researcher Nikolaos Evangeliou told AFP.
Measurements have varied depending on the fires’ intensity, wind direction and precipitation.
“We don’t see serious peaks or large increases… so we don’t see any environmental issue (in Norway) nor serious health hazards either,” he added.
Larger and more powerful wildfires than ever have scorched some 3.8 million hectares of Canadian forests and displaced tens of thousands of residents in recent weeks.
The scale is unprecedented, with some 2,300 fires registered so far this year.
Southern Norway, like much of northern Europe, has also experienced an unusually dry spring and early summer so far.
In southern Norway, no rain has fallen for 16 days and none is forecast for the coming days.
A three-week ban on fires in open spaces was introduced on Thursday.