The Impact of Boreal Forest Fire on Climate Warming
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Open Access
- 17 November 2006
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 314 (5802) , 1130-1132
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1132075
Abstract
We report measurements and analysis of a boreal forest fire, integrating the effects of greenhouse gases, aerosols, black carbon deposition on snow and sea ice, and postfire changes in surface albedo. The net effect of all agents was to increase radiative forcing during the first year (34 ± 31 Watts per square meter of burned area), but to decrease radiative forcing when averaged over an 80-year fire cycle (–2.3 ± 2.2 Watts per square meter) because multidecadal increases in surface albedo had a larger impact than fire-emitted greenhouse gases. This result implies that future increases in boreal fire may not accelerate climate warming.Keywords
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