Nature Ecology & Evolution: scientists analyzed data on fires since 2003
Large forest and steppe fires have become twice as frequent over the past 20 years, with the most noticeable increase recorded in the last 6-7 years, according to a study by Australian climatologists published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Scientists analyzed satellite fire data collected since 2003. At the same time, only fires whose scale was larger than 99.99 percent of other natural fires were taken into account. It turned out that the area of regions covered by such fires decreased over the specified period, but at the same time the frequency of fires increased by 2.2 times.
Most often, large fires occurred in North America and the adjacent areas of Greenland, as well as in Australia and neighboring regions. In addition, large-scale fires began to occur much more often in the taiga and coniferous forests of Russia, as well as in other countries of Northern Eurasia. The authors of the work noted that these regions contain significant reserves of organic matter that have previously been almost unaffected by large fires. Scientists warned that their destruction could accelerate global warming.
A new way to monitor fires was previously reported. The Earth Touches Everyone project created an experimental map of landscape fires in Eastern Europe, which included ten countries, including Russia.
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