![]() ![]() That suggests that California’s wildfires in recent years may be releasing enough CO2 to endanger the state’s progress toward meeting its greenhouse gas reduction targets. This year’s fires have also been extreme two of the state’s largest fires on record are burning right now, including the Mendocino fire complex, which exceeded 400,000 acres this week.Īccording to NOAA scientist Pieter Tans, head of the carbon cycle greenhouse gases group with the Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, a very large, very hot fire destroying 500,000 acres could emit the same total amount to CO2 as six large coal-fired power plants in one year. California fire experts estimate that the blazes that devastated Northern California’s wine country in October 2017 emitted as much CO2 in one week as all of California’s cars and trucks do over the course of a year. But human activities, including firefighting practices, are resulting in bigger, more intense fires, and their emissions could become a bigger contributor to global warming.Įxtreme fires can release huge amounts of CO2 in a very short time. Those historical emissions are part of the planet’s natural carbon cycle. There have always been big wildfires, since long before humans began profoundly altering the climate by burning fossil fuels. Please take a look at the new openings in our newsroom. As a result, they estimate that wildfires make up 5 to 10 percent of annual global CO2 emissions each year. ![]() When they calculate total global CO2 output, scientists don’t include all wildfire emissions as net emissions, though, because some of the CO2 is offset by renewed forest growth in the burned areas. In 2017, total global CO2 emissions reached 32.5 billion tons, according to the International Energy Agency. How Bad Is the Climate Feedback from Fires?Īlthough the exact quantities are difficult to calculate, scientists estimate that wildfires emitted about 8 billion tons of CO2 per year for the past 20 years. In turn, blazes like those scorching areas across the Northern Hemisphere this summer have a feedback effect-a vicious cycle when the results of warming produce yet more warming. That warming lengthens the fire season, drying and heating the forests. To be sure, the leading cause of global warming remains overwhelmingly the burning of fossil fuels. And they inject soot and other aerosols into the atmosphere, with complex effects on warming and cooling. They damage forests that would otherwise remove CO2 from the air. Wildfires emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that will continue to warm the planet well into the future. ![]() They are also affecting the climate itself in important ways that will long outlast their flames. The extreme wildfires sweeping across parts of North America, Europe and Siberia this year are not only wreaking local damage and sending choking smoke downwind. ![]()
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