Extreme wildfires are turning the world’s largest forest ecosystem from carbon sink into net-emitter

Mar 8, 2023

Wildfires are releasing carbon stored in trees and in upper soil layers. Image: REUTERS/Rodrigo Garrido

Tadas Nikonovas

Research Officer, Geography Department, Swansea University

Stefan H Doerr

Professor of Geography and Director of the Centre for Wildfire Research, Swansea University

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The boreal forest forms a near-continuous ring of trees around the world’s northern latitudes. Image: The Conversation.

One of the authors investigates a wildfire in boreal Canada. Most of the carbon lost in this fire would have been from soil, not trees. Image: Cristina Santin/The Conversation.

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Fires like these are now releasing more carbon than is stored in the period in between. Image: Cristina Santin/The Conversation.

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