The more than 200 fires burning in Alaska are a bigger problem than it sounds.

[Blue_In_AK]

This is a real good, but troubling, article.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/06/24/more-than-200-fires-are-burning-in-alaska-right-now-heres-why-thats-a-big-deal/?postshare=8061435165249031

<snip>

Granted, according to reporting by the Alaska News Dispatch, while this year’s fire numbers are high, total acreage burned so far hasn’t been that huge. Nonetheless, it’s quite a busy start to the summer — and there’s a lot of fire season left to go.

All of which is troubling for multiple reasons: (1) Recent research suggests that more Alaskan wildfires, and more large Alaskan fires in particular, are a trend; (2) In some cases, wildfires in Alaska don’t just consume trees, grasses or tundra. They can burn away soils as well and threaten permafrost, frozen soil beneath the ground, and so potentially help to trigger additional release of carbon to the atmosphere.

“One major concern about wildfires becoming more frequent in permafrost areas is the potential to put the vast amounts of carbon stored there at increased risk of being emitted and further amplify warming,” said Todd Sanford, a climate scientist at Climate Central and lead author of the group’s newly released report on Alaskan wildfires, by e-mail.

Sanford’s new report shows that this year is not an anomaly — it is part of a trend. The report found that there has been an upswing in large Alaskan fires, defined as those that consume more than 1,000 acres, over the past three decades:

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[peacebird]

1. Good grief, we really don't need anything else negatively impacting the permafrost....

There is just so much bad news about climate change these days, anything that speeds the thaw of permafrost will speed climate change as the greenhouse gasses stored there get released....

[pscot]

2. The sooner we take ouselves out

the sooner the biota can begin to right itself.