A study published earlier this year showed that peatlands in Canada are drying up and that fires there will become more common in the future.
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Among the most unsettling images of 2020 — next to the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic — have been the photos of wildfires in the Siberia region of Russia.
The notion of wildfires in Siberia, an area known for its blustery, snow-capped landscapes, seems counterintuitive. The recent blazes have been driven by a record heat wave in the Russian Arctic, but these aren’t your typical forest fires.
They’re actually peat fires, a natural phenomenon that scientists have only recently begun to understand — and one expected to become a growing concern in Canada.
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Peat, the moist, mossy substance that covers the ground in most Arctic ecosystems and Canadian boreal forests, is made up of decomposing biomass from plants, animals and microbes, and plays a key role in managing temperature.
“It adds to the beauty of Canadian landscapes, but it also regulates the Earth’s climate,” said Merritt Turetsky, an ecosystem ecologist and director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder.
“For thousands of years, [peat] has been a natural stockpile of carbon — removing carbon and keeping it out of the atmosphere.”
WATCH | Arctic fires have a global impact:
Siberia is normally one of the coldest places on Earth, but a recent heat wave is stoking large forest fires and raising concerns about what it signals for climate change. 2:11
The carbon is preserved naturally in these areas — provided, as Turetsky said, “we can keep peat cold and wet.”
But as a result of climate change, peatlands are becoming hotter and drier, and thus more susceptible to the type of blazes we’re witnessing in Siberia.
“We now know that peatlands around the world, from the Arctic all the way to the tropics, are indeed vulnerable to wildfire,” said Turetsky.
Calling peat-burning one of the most important environmental topics, Turetsky said “the Arctic literally has a fever and is literally on fire.”
Hard to extinguish
Peat fires not only release CO2, but other, more potent greenhouse gases such as methane, as well as particulate matter, “which is the stuff that gets into our lungs, it can