Climate change fans deep-burning fires in Alaska

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/environment/2010/December/environment_December6.xml§ion=environment

(Reuters)

6 December 2010,

WASHINGTON - Climate change is fanning longer- and deeper-burning fires in interior Alaska, changing the area from a carbon sink — where planet-warming gases are stored naturally in the soil — to a carbon emitter, scientists reported on Sunday.

The shift has occurred within the last 10 years and is due in large part to a longer burning season, according to a study published in Nature Geosciences. snip

Decades’ worth of accumulated biomass, called peat, can burn in minutes, Turetsky said.

To get an idea of how much carbon these fires are putting into the atmosphere, study co-author Eric Kasischke of the University of Maryland offered a vivid comparison.

In the last decade, Kasischke said in an email, the biggest fire year in Alaska was 2004, when more than 56.7 million tons (51.5 teragrams or 51.5 billion kg) of carbon was emitted over 90 days, more than was released by all domestic US airline flights for the whole year. That is also nearly as much carbon as was released by US electricity generating plants for the same 90-day period.

[Teaser]

1. good.

burn the whole thing down.

we're doomed.