New Scientist: Climate scientists may need to revise their predictions: instead of acting as carbon sinks, Earth`s northern boreal forests could start releasing carbon at a faster rate than they can capture it.
Most global climate models treat these forests as storing about one-third of all terrestrial carbon in trees and, especially, in thick layers of peaty soil. Forest fires disrupt this storage temporarily, releasing carbon to the atmosphere until it can be recaptured by regrowth.
The net effect of this...