Feedback Loops of Fire Activity and Climate Change in Canada

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https://eos.org/articles/feedback-loops-of-fire-activity-and-climate-change-in-canada

Source:  By Saima Sidik, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: Wildfires burned more than 7,750 square kilometers of Alberta’s forests last year. New research indicates the conflagrations are part of a pattern showing increased average burned areas every year since 1970, and climate change is poised to accelerate this trend. Ellen Whitman, a forest fire research scientist from Natural Resources Canada, used historical records as well as satellite data from the Landsat program to analyze how the frequency, size, and distribution of forest fires in the province of Alberta changed between 1970 and 2019—research she’ll present at AGU’s Fall Meeting 2020. She and coworkers from the Canadian Forest Service and the U.S. Forest Service found that forest fire activity in Alberta increased according to a plethora of metrics over the past 49 years, with the number of fires that consume at least 200 hectares of land almost doubling and the average area burned per year increasing approximately fifteenfold. “Every variable we were interested in seems to have demonstrated some type of change over time,” Whitman said. Variables included data surrounding fires in wetlands and old-growth forests, as well as the recovery of forests after a fire. ...Even wetlands, with their low propensity for fire, are burning more frequently. Whitman said that the proportion of burned wetland forests has increased approximately fivefold, from comprising only 3% of land burned by wildfires in 1970 to 15% in 2019.... [

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