Warming earth causes forest fires

Global warming is making the Northern Hemisphere forest fires become more frequent and intense, contributing to increasing the risk of climate change quickly.

The pasture fire in Tibet (China) last week killed 22 people.Photo: The Hindu

The study by the University of Guelph (Canada) showed that the level of wildfires increased in Alaska state (USA) in the past decade making it a repository of carbon dioxide (CO ₂ ), the greenhouse gas responsible. The main task is to warm up the Earth. In other words, the forests in the North today are absorbing less CO2 than the carbon dioxide they emit. The amount of CO2 released is not only derived from burned trees but also from the ground. 'Most of the things that cause forest fires are garbage from trees, mosses, organic matter in the surface soil , ' explains Merritt Turetsky, professor and research director.

Professor Turetsky said that the result is worrisome because about 50% of global carbon in the world is being stored in peat-rich areas or permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere. "The amount of carbon that accumulates little by little in ecosystems has been around for thousands of years, but it is being released very quickly," she said. The study, although targeting 18.5 million hectares of forests in Alaska, could be used as a basis for assessing large forests in Sibérie (Russia), Canada and Northern Europe.