Smoke plume from Canadian wildfires reaches Europe [Video]

The thick haze that recently blanketed much of the northeastern U.S. may have dissipated, but the problem at its root is far from over. On Tuesday, scientists warned that the wildfires in Canada have generated “record levels of emissions” that have now sent a smoke plume across the Atlantic to Europe.

In a report by Copernicus — the European Union’s program that observes Earth — scientists said that the Canadian wildfires have only intensified throughout June. The fires have been so intense that the fire radiative power emitted for the entire country was “significantly higher” in the first three weeks of June than the average from the past 20 years. There have also been an estimated 100 megatons of carbon emissions from the wildfires.

These have comprised “record levels of emissions,” Copernicus said, and make up “the largest annual estimated emissions for Canada in the 21 years of our [Global Fire Assimilation System] dataset,” which dates back to 2003.