Wildfires in US, Canadian boreal forests could release sizable amount of remaining global carbon budget

A previously burned boreal forest, with blackened trunks rising from green new undergrowth

Wildfires in US, Canadian boreal forests could release sizable amount of remaining global carbon budget

A previously burned boreal forest, with blackened trunks rising from green new undergrowth

A paper by U.S. scientists published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances today finds that fires occurring in U.S. and Canadian boreal forests between now and 2050 could release about 3% of the remaining global carbon budget unless greater investments are made to limit fire size in these carbon-rich forests. The first-of-its-kind study was led by Dr. Carly Phillips, a fellow with the Western States Climate Team at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and co-authored with a team of researchers from the Woodwell Climate Research Center, Tufts University, Harvard University, the University of California, and Hamilton College.

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