"Wildfires in Northern Forests Broke Carbon Emissions Records in 2021"

"Boreal forests store huge amounts of carbon, but the warming and drying climate is leading them to burn bigger, hotter and more frequently."

"Carbon emissions from wildfires in boreal forests, the earth’s largest land biome and a significant carbon sink, spiked higher in 2021 than in any of the last 20 years, according to new research.

Boreal forests, which cover northern latitudes in parts of North America, Europe and Asia usually account for about 10 percent of carbon dioxide released annually by wildfires, but in 2021 were the source of nearly a quarter of those emissions.

Overall, wildfire emissions are increasing. In 2021, however, fires in boreal forests spewed an “abnormally vast amount of carbon,” releasing 150 percent of their annual average from the preceding two decades, the study published earlier this month in the journal Science said. That’s twice what global aviation emitted that year, said author Steven Davis, a professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine, in a press release."

Emma Foehringer Merchant reports for Inside Climate News March 22, 2023.