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Spruce Beetles Don't Increase Severity Of Colorado Forest Fires, Researchers Say

2015-10-29 22:03:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed

Nature World News: Spruce beetles have often been blamed for increasing the severity of raging wildfires throughout Colorado. While the bugs invade Engelmann spruce and subalpine fir forests and scar the trees they feed on, this destruction is not linked to the occurrence of forest fires plaguing the state, a new study revealed. Within the past decade, spruce beetles have chewed through roughly half a million acres of forests in Colorado. In 2014 alone the beetles reportedly infested more than 87,000 new acres of...

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Alaskan Forest Fires Could Make Climate Change Much Worse

2015-10-20 22:41:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed

Gizmodo: If humans want to limit global warming, well need to drastically reduce our carbon pollution. We might need to do so even faster than our models suggest, because as scientists are now discovering, theres an additional factor working against us: fire. Last week, we learned that Indonesia is in the midst of a devastating fire season, one thats sending as much carbon skyward as the entire US economy. Indonesia isnt alone -- Western North America is currently recovering from one of the most brutal...

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Alaskan boreal forest fires release more carbon than trees can absorb

2015-10-19 21:02:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed

ScienceDaily: A new analysis of fire activity in Alaska's Yukon Flats finds that so many forest fires are occurring there that the area has become a net exporter of carbon to the atmosphere. This is worrisome, the researchers say, because arctic and subarctic boreal forests like those of the Yukon Flats contain roughly one-third of Earth's terrestrial carbon stores. The research is reported in the journal Nature Climate Change. Alaska fire records go back only to 1939, and scientists often assume that present-day...

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Climate models may be wrong as fires cancel forest carbon sinks

2015-10-19 17:00:00| Climate Ark Climate Change & Global Warming Newsfeed

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...

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