TY - JOUR
T1 - Increasing wildfires threaten historic carbon sink of boreal forest soils
AU - Walker, Xanthe J.
AU - Baltzer, Jennifer L.
AU - Cumming, Steven G.
AU - Day, Nicola J.
AU - Ebert, Christopher
AU - Goetz, Scott
AU - Johnstone, Jill F.
AU - Potter, Stefano
AU - Rogers, Brendan M.
AU - Schuur, Edward A.G.
AU - Turetsky, Merritt R.
AU - Mack, Michelle C.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements This project was supported by funding awarded to M.C.M. from NSF DEB RAPID grant number 1542150, and from the NASA Arctic Boreal and Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) Legacy Carbon grant NNX15AT71A; by NSERC Discovery Grants to J.F.J. and M.R.T.; by Government of the Northwest Territories Cumulative Impacts Monitoring Program Funding project number 170 to J.L.B.; by an NSERC-PDF to N.J.D.; and by Polar Knowledge Canada’s Northern Science Training Program funding awarded to Canadian field assistants. Logistical and financial support was provided through the Government of the Northwest Territories–Wilfrid Laurier University Partnership Agreement.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2019/8/22
Y1 - 2019/8/22
N2 - Boreal forest fires emit large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere primarily through the combustion of soil organic matter1–3. During each fire, a portion of this soil beneath the burned layer can escape combustion, leading to a net accumulation of carbon in forests over multiple fire events4. Climate warming and drying has led to more severe and frequent forest fires5–7, which threaten to shift the carbon balance of the boreal ecosystem from net accumulation to net loss1, resulting in a positive climate feedback8. This feedback will occur if organic-soil carbon that escaped burning in previous fires, termed ‘legacy carbon’, combusts. Here we use soil radiocarbon dating to quantitatively assess legacy carbon loss in the 2014 wildfires in the Northwest Territories of Canada2. We found no evidence for the combustion of legacy carbon in forests that were older than the historic fire-return interval of northwestern boreal forests9. In forests that were in dry landscapes and less than 60 years old at the time of the fire, legacy carbon that had escaped burning in the previous fire cycle was combusted. We estimate that 0.34 million hectares of young forests (<60 years) that burned in the 2014 fires could have experienced legacy carbon combustion. This implies a shift to a domain of carbon cycling in which these forests become a net source—instead of a sink—of carbon to the atmosphere over consecutive fires. As boreal wildfires continue to increase in size, frequency and intensity7, the area of young forests that experience legacy carbon combustion will probably increase and have a key role in shifting the boreal carbon balance.
AB - Boreal forest fires emit large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere primarily through the combustion of soil organic matter1–3. During each fire, a portion of this soil beneath the burned layer can escape combustion, leading to a net accumulation of carbon in forests over multiple fire events4. Climate warming and drying has led to more severe and frequent forest fires5–7, which threaten to shift the carbon balance of the boreal ecosystem from net accumulation to net loss1, resulting in a positive climate feedback8. This feedback will occur if organic-soil carbon that escaped burning in previous fires, termed ‘legacy carbon’, combusts. Here we use soil radiocarbon dating to quantitatively assess legacy carbon loss in the 2014 wildfires in the Northwest Territories of Canada2. We found no evidence for the combustion of legacy carbon in forests that were older than the historic fire-return interval of northwestern boreal forests9. In forests that were in dry landscapes and less than 60 years old at the time of the fire, legacy carbon that had escaped burning in the previous fire cycle was combusted. We estimate that 0.34 million hectares of young forests (<60 years) that burned in the 2014 fires could have experienced legacy carbon combustion. This implies a shift to a domain of carbon cycling in which these forests become a net source—instead of a sink—of carbon to the atmosphere over consecutive fires. As boreal wildfires continue to increase in size, frequency and intensity7, the area of young forests that experience legacy carbon combustion will probably increase and have a key role in shifting the boreal carbon balance.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41586-019-1474-y
DO - 10.1038/s41586-019-1474-y
M3 - Article
C2 - 31435055
AN - SCOPUS:85071125324
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 572
SP - 520
EP - 523
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7770
ER -