Impacts of 2023 Canadian wildfire emissions on solar power over North America and Europe

Wildfires are unpredictable combustion events that significantly drive atmospheric emissions and modulate global cloud cover. An extreme example of such an event is the case of the 2023 Canadian wildfires, wherein nearly 5% of Canada’s forested area was burned between May and September 2023 [1]. This event produced the largest wildfire emissions ever recorded in Canada, with plumes extending across the Northern Hemisphere [2]. Aerosol intrusions and associated modifications absorbing and/or scattering can cause variability of solar irradiance [3], while reductions in photovoltaic power anywhere between 13% and 22% can take place because of aerosol optical depth (AOD) increases [4]. Consequently, the plumes resultant from the 2023 Canadian wildfires might have caused significant photovoltaic power losses over North America and Europe.

In this work, the global and local atmospheric impacts of this historic wildfire event are investigated using the EC‑Earth3 Earth system model in the interactive aerosols and atmospheric chemistry configuration (AerChem) [5]. BB emissions from the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) were used through the model to produce two 10-member ensemble simulations, with and without the 2023 Canadian wildfire emissions respectively. The main parameter of interest is the modelled surface downwelling flux anomaly, which enables direct inference of modelled reductions in solar power output.

Model results have shown substantial radiative anomalies during May–September 2023 mainly in North America and Europe, with an average hemispheric shortwave radiation reduction of −4.18 W/m² leading to PV production deficits. Secondary analyses suggest that surface cooling, which amounted to an average hemispheric temperature anomaly of −0.91 °C and which impacts PV performance, compensated 8–21% of the PV losses, varying by region. The results indicate a total 5-monthly modelled PV generation loss of 6.38 TWh, and the emitted carbon burden equivalent to this reduction in energy production is estimated at 2083 tons of CO₂, with a total associated economic deficit of 1.33 billion euros. These findings emphasize the need for integrated transnational strategies in extreme event prediction and wildfire prevention to ensure the continued resilience of renewable energy production.

 

[1] Roșu, I. A., Mourgela, R. N., Kasoar, M., Boleti, E., Parrington, M., & Voulgarakis, A. (2025). Large-scale impacts of the 2023 Canadian wildfires on the Northern Hemisphere atmosphere. npj Clean Air, 1(1), 22.

[2] Byrne, B., Liu, J., Bowman, K. W., Pascolini-Campbell, M., Chatterjee, A., Pandey, S., ... & Sinha, S. (2024). Carbon emissions from the 2023 Canadian wildfires. Nature, 633(8031), 835-839.

[3] Wendisch, M., & Yang, P. (2012). Theory of atmospheric radiative transfer: a comprehensive introduction. John Wiley & Sons.

[4] Neher I., Buchmann T., Crewell S., Pospichal B. & Meilinger S. (2019). Impact of atmospheric aerosols on solar power. Meteorologische Zeitschrift, 4, 28.

[5] Van Noije, T., Bergman, T., Le Sager, P., O'Donnell, D., Makkonen, R., Gonçalves-Ageitos, M., ... & Yang, S. (2020). EC-Earth3-AerChem, a global climate model with interactive aerosols and atmospheric chemistry participating in CMIP6. Geoscientific Model Development Discussions, 1-46.