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Earth Canada

Canada Wildfires Last Year Released More Carbon Than Several Countries 85

Posted by BeauHD from the would-you-look-at-that dept.
A study found that Canada's 2023 wildfires released 647 megatons of carbon, surpassing the emissions of seven of the ten largest emitting countries, including Germany, Japan, and Russia. "Only China, India and the United States emitted more carbon emissions during that period, meaning that if Canada's wildfires were ranked alongside countries, they would have been the world's fourth largest emitter," adds Reuters. From the report: Typical emissions from Canadian forest fires over the last decade have ranged from 29 to 121 megatons. But climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is leading to drier and hotter conditions, driving extreme wildfires. The 2023 fires burned 15 million hectares (37 million acres) across Canada, or about 4% of its forests. The findings add to concerns about dependence on the world's forests to act as a long-term carbon sink for industrial emissions when instead they could be aggravating the problem as they catch fire.

The worry is that the global carbon budget, or the estimated amount of greenhouse gases the world can continue to emit while holding warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, is based on inaccurate calculations. [...] The abnormally hot temperatures Canada experienced in 2023 are projected to be common by the 2050s, the study said. This is likely to lead to severe fires across the 347 million hectares (857 million acres) of woodlands that Canada depends on to store carbon. The study has been published in the journal Nature.
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Canada Wildfires Last Year Released More Carbon Than Several Countries More

Canada Wildfires Last Year Released More Carbon Than Several Countries

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  • If I read the body of the summary correctly, Canada's wildfires emitted more than any country "except for several". That's rather different.

    I'm going to miss Jasper... at least for a few years... I hope Banff doesn't suffer the same fate.

    • I hope Banff doesn't suffer the same fate.

      It's pretty much guaranteed to at some point. Large fires are part of the natural cycle of the forests. One of the things that apparently made the Jasper fire worse was the suppression of fires over the years that allowed fuel to build up. Hopefully we can learn from that and take measures to reduce the risk to Banff and Jasper too in the future but eventually both will face forest fires again and all that can be hoped is to limit the damage to the town.

      • >> the suppression of fires over the years that allowed fuel to build up

        And you know this how?
        "climate change, driven by the burning of fossil fuels, is leading to drier and hotter conditions, driving extreme wildfires."

        • >> the suppression of fires over the years that allowed fuel to build up

          And you know this how?

          Fewer trees destroyed in previous fires means more trees alive to be burned in future fires along with trees that have grown since. Typically as it also means tree density in forests is higher they're going to be burning much fiercer and spreading faster.

          • >> Fewer trees destroyed in previous fires means more trees alive to be burned in future fires

            Sure, but that doesn't support the claim that fires have been suppressed.

            https://foresthistory.org/rese... [foresthistory.org]
            "during the 1960s, scientific research increasingly demonstrated the positive role fire played in forest ecology. This led in the early 1970s to a radical change in Forest Service policy—to let fires burn when and where appropriate. It began with allowing natural-caused fires to burn in designated w

            • Sure, but that doesn't support the claim that fires have been suppressed.

              The Parks Canada website [canada.ca] does though: "...for over 100 years, Fire and Game Wardens suppressed all fires in national parks." Just one quick Google search away....

        • the suppression of fires over the years that allowed fuel to build up

          And you know this how?

          ....because it was reported in the local press here in Alberta at the time of the Jasper fire and you can even go to the Parks Canada [canada.ca] site where they talk about the problem and even show an example of a prescribed burn in Banff National Park itself as they attempt to deal with the issue. Is that comprehensive enough for you?

          • So there have been prescribed burns? "Staff at La Mauricie National Park in Quebec have been using prescribed fires for over 30 years"

  • Plants capture the most CO2 when it's growing. Hopefully the recovery will capture way more CO2 than steady state and compensate for these fires.

    • Re:Ouch (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jkechel ( 1101181 ) on Thursday August 29, 2024 @05:18AM (#64745662)

      A tree when burned emits excactly the same amount of COS as it took from the air when it grew.

      That is a carbon-cycle thats duration is about the time it takes to grow a tree.

      The problem for climate is more fossil carbon which cycle is several million years, an when fossil carbon is burned it adds additional co2 to the atmosphere for several million years. .. of course trees that don't regrow at all (e.g. cause it becomes a desert afterwards) leave that short cycle too and add long-term damage.

      • A tree when burned emits excactly the same amount of COS as it took from the air when it grew.

        However, it takes many years to get the CO2 back naturally. When trees are burned instead, it takes the carbon that would not normally be in the atmosphere for years still and dumps it in depleting the carbon stored and accelerating the damage being done. It’s effectively doing the same thing burning fossil fuel is doing, taking carbon from storage by permanently (on human lifetimes) removing it from storage by shrinking the amount stored and putting it into the atmosphere instead. CO2 traps the hea

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

          CO2 traps the heat just the same no matter what the source and we arenâ(TM)t even pretending about going back to the amount of trees that were around before humans.

          It's not just that. The oil and coal we have burned represent multiple successions of forests. You could forest the entire planet and still not fix as much carbon as we've released through industrialism.

          • It's not just that. The oil and coal we have burned represent multiple successions of forests. You could forest the entire planet and still not fix as much carbon as we've released through industrialism.

            Sure, but it always seems to come up that releasing CO2 is “OK” if it came from a natural source like trees with only perhaps a kindergarten or first grade understanding of what reality is. People really think somehow the CO2 is different chemically or something or it’s the same on the ground as in the air. Reality is we have shrunk the wood in rotting storage to the point it’s the fourth largest emitter in the world yet we are only considering just Canada and its extremely dangero

            • Well if humans did it, humans can stop doing it, and have a moral responsibility regarding it. For example, we have rules for humane slaughtering of animals, but in nature carnivores don't follow those rules and trying to enforce such rules on hyenas would be difficult and it's not clear that we should.

              • Well if humans did it, humans can stop doing it, and have a moral responsibility regarding it. For example, we have rules for humane slaughtering of animals, but in nature carnivores don't follow those rules and trying to enforce such rules on hyenas would be difficult and it's not clear that we should.

                Humans brought the insects and diseases that native species have no natural defenses and predators, killing entire forests of one or more types of tree, igniting fires on a scale not seen by any humans ever to date. The forests aren’t coming back with the same trees, or even as the same biomass, it’s causing mass deforestation. Humans can’t fix the problem by stopping anymore, I mean this should be obvious to anyone, nor is it easily fixable. In fact it’s so much damage it’

        • CO2 traps the heat just the same no matter what the source and we arenâ(TM)t even pretending about going back to the amount of trees that were around before humans.

          While we're at it, let's consider the change in the number of animals in that area as well. I'm talking about the huge clouds of Passenger Pigeons and the enormous herds of bison that inhabited the American prairies. Both species were plant eaters, although the pigeons also ate worms and other invertebrates, mostly during the breeding s

      • A tree when burned emits excactly the same amount of COS as it took from the air when it grew.

        I don't think the roots would burn. Or leaves already shed in previous years.Those will have taken carbon from the air to grow. And a lot of carbon will remain in the burned out husk of the tree, and not be released into the air.

        So your "exactly the same amount" probably isn't close.

        • A tree when burned emits excactly the same amount of COS as it took from the air when it grew.

          I don't think the roots would burn. Or leaves already shed in previous years.Those will have taken carbon from the air to grow. And a lot of carbon will remain in the burned out husk of the tree, and not be released into the air.

          So your "exactly the same amount" probably isn't close.

          Roots decompose as well. As does the burned out remains - it's just the difference between a rapid release and a slower one. In the long haul, vegetation is carbon neutral. It has to be. If vegetation didn't return Carbon to the atmosphere, life as we know it would have to adopt to global average temperatures to be below the freezing point of water.

          I look at the article merely as noting that completely natural (and needed) things like wildfires are yet another source of returning Carbon to the atmosphere.

          • "If vegetation didn't return Carbon to the atmosphere, life as we know it would have to adopt to global average temperatures to be below the freezing point of water."

            Vegetation both does and doesn't do that.

            The only reason we got such a nice cool climate is that a lot of the carbon was NOT released. The lignin became coal and oil. Now fungus can consume lignin, so that will never happen again.

        • Remember all the animals that eat plant bits though - every one of them is spewing CO2, with every exhale, as they digest, process and utilize the energy stored in plant material.

          I guess if we want less CO2, we need to make more plants, and kill more animals and insects.

          What could possibly go wrong?

          • This is backward. Plants sequester CO2 through the production of soil not wood. A rich ecosystem full of animals and insects sequesters far more CO2 than a poor one with just trees.

      • I think the bigger issue is when people chop down old growth forest for burning (or for constructing something that later burns). The environment is not suitable for growing some of those old forests again, and those old trees hold more carbon than the trees that would sprout up to replace them.

        Fortunately, fires have no negative impact on old growth forests (to my knowledge), so we can choose to leave those forests alone (Brazil, we're looking at you). Fires in the Pacific Northwest - for example - are lik

        • Fires have an impact in the short term, but yes, in the long term the forests will regrow.

          Unless the fires increase in frequency and ferocity as a result, say, of climate change resulting in less rain fall and more evaporation. Then the survival strategies of many plants and animals in the ecosystem will start to fail; some species will probably survive but the ecosystem will become simpler and less rich. These sort of ecosystems tend to both hold and sequester less CO2.

      • That isn't true.

        While they grow trees dry the soil and also aerate it. That's good in some ways, but it can also allow release of CO2 from the soil. If you plant a tree in a peat bog, there is a good chance it will be releasing CO2 from the soil while it grows. If you then burn it, more CO2 will have been emitted than sequestrated.

        On the other hand, in a native and mature woodland, the tree will have dropped leaves for many years and have an extensive root system, all of which will be contributing to the pr

        • It is of course both things, because the tree is made mostly of carbon.

          • Trees only sequester when the amount of biomass increases. Soil can be laid down year on year. That's the difference.

            • Trees only sequester when the amount of biomass increases. Soil can be laid down year on year. That's the difference.

              Soil only can be laid down as an eventual result of the amount of biomass increasing.

              • No, that's not true. The biomass can be steady state and still lay down soil.

                Imagine a pool of water, full with 100 tons of algae in it. Now take out a ton of algae and throw it down a mine full of salt. In a very short while the 99 tons of algae will regenerate that ton of algae you have removed. Meanwhile the ton you have removed will stay like it is for a very long time.

                Soil is like this. Every year the trees fall, leaves drop. The overall amount of biomass remains the same. But the soil gets thicker an

      • I don't know the best way to ask this question but bear with me. If we put the fossil carbon back into the air, how long will it take for dinosaurs to evolve again?
    • Nature did what humans should have done. We could have just used the trees as lumber, and captured the CO2 in wood frame homes/furniture/etc of value

      • 1) Trees have value; not everything is about human consumption.

        2) Burned forests grow back far better than chopped ones. It still takes like a century to be back to normal.

        3) People like to surround their houses in kindling so then the houses all burn up easily. Worst thing you can do is have shrubs and bushes a few meters near your house. Grasses you can survive; trees obviously are not good. Have overhangs? attic vents without a fine mesh? You're doomed. Oh, and windows... IR burns the inside before the

        • "Forests capture CO2; no forest, no carbon sink. The problem is burning releases the long term storage."

          No, it does not. It releases some percentage of the medium term storage. The long term storage is in the soil. The short term storage of a forest is in the scrub. The roots can be up to 40% of the mass of the tree and they don't burn. Often there are parts of trees left above ground as well.

  • Pure Propaganda (Score:1, Insightful)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) *

    > The abnormally hot temperatures

    They literally caught some of the arsonists and propagandists are like "the weather is warm."

    The arsonists have one of the DSMV mental illnesses the Luciferian communists celebrate so they bury the story.

    Perhaps engage actual compassion and help people with mental illness instead of using them as political pawns? Crazy, right?

    Maybe the allegory of Hell Fire has some merit to it. Stop lying all the time and your forests won't burn.

    • Fires are going to happen. Whether by arson or lightning. How far those fires spread has nothing to do with what started the fire. The only way around this is to perform regular, controlled burns. But the Canadian forests are far too vast and Canada far too unpopulated for this to be feasible.

      • Is this why Canada welcomes massive numbers of asylum seekers? Are they creating population centers in the forests to help maintain them with controlled burns?

      • You are missing the point. Dozens of those forest fires in Canada were intentionally set by ecoterrorists to make it look like the effects of climate change are worse than what they are. Many of those terrorists who were arrested admitted to setting dozens of fires each!

        The main story regarding those fires should have been "Climate change supporters are comitting arson to made the fire season appear worse than normal." but right on queue, the subjective legacy media,in Canada, US, and the world, mostly i

    • That's the reason a fire was as bad as it was and spread as fast as it did is because global warming caused droughts so there's a lot more dry kindling kicking around right?

      If you have a massive multi-year drought then fires are significantly worse and much harder to contain.

      Increase to temperatures around the globe are cause all sorts of problems for us humans. We've been warned about them for decades and now the problems are actually happening. I think a lot of us thought we'd be dead before they

    • > The abnormally hot temperatures

      They literally caught some of the arsonists and propagandists are like "the weather is warm."

      Clearly, we need tree control.

  • Of couse, if you burn it, its not there to burn the next year ...... or the year after ... or perhaps for 10 years or so ... depending on the tree type.
    So higher tempreatures would not cause more fires per se., as the burn/re-grow cycle would just establish a new, perhaps
    more frequent steady state ....

    If its managed forest (for paper etc.) ... bigger firebreaks would be a good idea... mebbe.

    SD

    • Re:Burn once ... wait a bit ... (Score:5, Informative)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Thursday August 29, 2024 @07:03AM (#64745776)

      Higher temperatures dry out vegetation so that it burns more readily, thus more areas become susceptible to burning. Keeping doing it and the new steady state might not include you.

      • Higher temperatures dry out vegetation so that it burns more readily, thus more areas become susceptible to burning. Keeping doing it and the new steady state might not include you.

        They also make fires more likely. For example it's very hard for a cigarette butt to start a fire when the temps are low.

      • The fact most forget is that fire is a natural and required part of every forest lifecycle - the reason we're seeing such increased activity now is our bone-headed moves to suppress wildfires for so many of the past decades, leaving deadfall to build up to levels whereby the natural fire becomes much more intense, spreading faster and sending hot embers much further.

    • If the frequency of fires increases, there's less time for new trees to grow. That means less carbon-holding wood per hectare, which means more carbon in the atmosphere.

    • "higher tempreatures would not cause more fires ... just establish a ... more frequent steady state"

      You've contradicted yourself here.

      • Indeed - you are corect.

        Perhaps what I meant to say was one fire every twentry years might be equal to two fires every ten years.
        More fires, but a similar amout of 'fire' overall ... or something like that.

        SD

    • "as the burn/re-grow cycle would just establish a new, perhaps more frequent steady state"

      The problem is that the plants and animals in the ecosystem have evolved for the current frequency. If the fires become more frequent and violent, the ecosystem will have to adapt; it will do so in some state, but the faster the change is, the harder it is for most species to adapt. So, we end up with fewer species and a much less rich ecosystem.

      That's a bad thing.

  • After a forest catches fire the entire ecosystem experiences a period of very strong regrowth. That regrowth recaptures carbon at a far FAR higher rate than a mature forest sequesters it. It's not a completely closed cycle of course, but the reality is that much of the carbon emitted by a forest burning is recaptured by the burnt forest.

    Unlike say when you cut down the forest properly killing it, and throw it into a furnace.

    • The forest is like a bank account, by releasing all the CO2 through burning that wouldn’t normally occur (in this case largely through invasive insects and diseases brought by humans causing a buildup of dead wood) it permanently shrinks the storage on human lifetimes and makes the problem for all humans alive now, worse. So these really are effectively cutting down the forest and properly killing it, not to be replaced with what once was.

      • You're making some broad (and some weird, like your use of the word "permanent") generalizations. For maximum carbon capture you generally want big trees. Fires burn through the weak competition and leave more resources for the big trees to grow (just from a basic geometry standpoint, the taller canopy, the more captured carbon). Because of this, some forest fires are carbon negative, for example many in the Pacific Northwest.

        • We aren’t taking natural fires that have been going on for millions of years, we are talking about invasive species killing off entire forests in one go due to humans bringing them there and the whole place going up not to regrow with the same vegetation or even biomass that was there before. We aren’t talking about some tiny 5 acre fires in the Pacific Northwest, we are talking about fires so massive they blotted out the sun for months in my state and we were told in no uncertain terms to sta

          • Ok, but there's no such thing as a "natural" cycle of forest fire in North America. North American forests have historically been managed with controlled burning.

            https://www.freep.com/story/ne... [freep.com]

            • Ok, but there's no such thing as a "natural" cycle of forest fire in North America. North American forests have historically been managed with controlled burning.

              https://www.freep.com/story/ne... [freep.com]

              Controlled burns are most often for humans, not actual forest management. In the case Fires have been happening since before lignin was able to be broken down and natural coal production stopped, but only during mass extinction events have entire species gone missing not to return. When those native peoples managed forests by fire a thousand years ago, there were no invasive species brought in that destroyed the ecosystem and left entire species dead in only a few decades, who cannot grow back because the

    • After a forest catches fire the entire ecosystem experiences a period of very strong regrowth. That regrowth recaptures carbon at a far FAR higher rate than a mature forest sequesters it.

      False. This has been studied a lot, so there are tons of citations available, here is a story I found just now [latimes.com] that I don't think I've linked before (on the many previous occasions when I've shared this information with Slashdot.) If you want scholarly citations, there are assloads of them. For the majority of species, mature trees fix more carbon than young ones because they are bigger. All growth occurs in a thin layer below the bark called the cambium, which is larger in larger trees; all growth is drive

      • So much for this shithole

      • I feel like you completely missed the point I was making. The article doesn't refute what I was saying either. It talks about carbon store, there's no questioning that, older bigger trees store more carbon. That doesn't mean they store them at a higher rate. A mature tree grows slower than an old one. That is a distinction.

        The reality is carbon storage comes from growth. Growth is accelerated post forest fire (as is photosynthesis) it's a standard panic reaction for plants. You didn't even disagree with tha

    • Actually more than what was emitted is recpatured because roots and leaf litter that have rotted do not all burn plus there is ash left behind. However, that will take a few decades and in the meantime that carbon will be in the atmosphere..So it is an issue for the next few decades but is good in the longer term.

      • Actually more than what was emitted is recpatured because roots and leaf litter that have rotted do not all burn plus there is ash left behind.

        Minor terminology correction; the actual ash doesn't contain carbon. But there will also be char left behind, which does.
        (ash is the white stuff; char is the black stuff).

        However, that will take a few decades and in the meantime that carbon will be in the atmosphere...

        Agree.

        • Minor terminology correction; the actual ash doesn't contain carbon.

          Actually the main components in wood ash [wikipedia.org] are carbon (5-30%) and calcium (7-33%).

          • Ah, good point-- you're right, a lot of the fully burned product is carbonates.

            I was thinking of organic (that is, combustable) carbon, but failed to think of carbonates.

    • After a forest catches fire the entire ecosystem experiences a period of very strong regrowth. That regrowth recaptures carbon at a far FAR higher rate than a mature forest sequesters it. It's not a completely closed cycle of course, but the reality is that much of the carbon emitted by a forest burning is recaptured by the burnt forest.

      Unlike say when you cut down the forest properly killing it, and throw it into a furnace.

      As a completely natural and needed phenomenon, yes, regrowth after fire is amazing. We had a wildfire in the wilderness north of my place maybe 20 years ago. Looked like the surface of Mars over a pretty wide area.

      First the ferns come in, then some small bushes. Then some skinny small trees. At this stage, the regenerating forest is really dense. You need a machete to blaze a trail through it. Meanwhile, the oaks, maples, and walnuts start growing, along with pines. Eventually, they reach a point where

      • After a forest catches fire the entire ecosystem experiences a period of very strong regrowth. That regrowth recaptures carbon at a far FAR higher rate than a mature forest sequesters it. It's not a completely closed cycle of course, but the reality is that much of the carbon emitted by a forest burning is recaptured by the burnt forest.

        Unlike say when you cut down the forest properly killing it, and throw it into a furnace.

        As a completely natural and needed phenomenon, yes, regrowth after fire is amazing. We had a wildfire in the wilderness north of my place maybe 20 years ago. Looked like the surface of Mars over a pretty wide area.

        First the ferns come in, then some small bushes. Then some skinny small trees. At this stage, the regenerating forest is really dense. You need a machete to blaze a trail through it. Meanwhile, the oaks, maples, and walnuts start growing, along with pines. Eventually, they reach a point where the small trees aren't getting enough sun.

        And at each stage, there is wildlife that lives in the regenerating forest.

        My dad's place has acres of woods in back, it is one of the most amazing things to see even with just a few dozen acres of wild space. I work on a lot of high-technology and get to see and use a lot of neat scientific instrumentation, but man, nothing beats the complexity and beauty of nature. The sheer size of the web of life that cycles through even a small wooded area is crazy, from the insects to the birds on up through the deer and other animals, and then the plants are equally interesting, mosses and

  • and compare the result. Keep a few unburnt as a control group.
  • Yes, the point is that even if every single scrap of carbon emitted by the forest fires went unreclaimed by the regrowth process, that's exactly why we need to limit artifical carbon emission.
  • before they release the deadly CO2 they feed on

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