Americans in the eastern half of the country have been breathing thick smoke from fires in Canada this summer. And if June, the hottest month on record weren’t enough to convince people global heating may be serious, the unprecedented fire smoke should set off alarms in American’s minds. Yet it seems people are mainly focused on their own discomfort rather than the Canadian forest fire disaster unfolding north of us.
At the end of June, the Canadian Interagency Fire Center showed 497 fires, 230 of which were out of control. These fires are burning 20 million acres of land in the boreal forests of northern Canada though fires have also burned brush lands in Nova Scotia and grasslands farther south.
This is a record year for fire in Canada. And it’s not just Canada that’s burning in the north. Across the Pacific, the Russian boreal forests have also faced big wildfires that have burned communities and spread smoke east to Alaska.
It’s difficult to overstate how critical these forests are for world environmental health. Boreal forests cover 16.6 million square kilometers (about 6.5 million square miles) of land over the area south of the arctic and hold two thirds of the world’s forest carbon. According to a team of NASA funded scientists, these forests play an outsized role in in storing carbon for the world and potentially releasing it through logging and fires.
The boreal forests are made up of aspen, birch and a variety of spruce and fir species. Fire is a natural part of these forests where infrequent high severity fires have been the norm until the last two decades. Some researchers predict that the area burned by fire in Canada could increase by 150 percent by 2050, and a similar amount in Alaska.
When these forests burn, deep layers of peat below them can burn. This peat forms an insulating layer protecting permafrost below. Once permafrost starts to melt it releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The more carbon dioxide and methane are released from melting permafrost, the more the climate warms in a vicious cycle.
Native people live in around 600 villages in the boreal forests and have joined with the Canadian government to set large areas aside as biodiversity preserves.
Why are these forests burning?
Scientists see world temperatures rising with ever increasing human emissions from burning fossil fuels and from natural sources such as the arctic methane releases mentioned above. As greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere, the climate gets warmer and warmer over time. Humans have made only marginal decreases in greenhouse gas emissions despite global treaties calling for steep cuts soon.
This global heating is changing major natural climate regulation systems such as ocean and atmospheric currents such as the jet stream. As the jet stream becomes more erratic in its path with warming, it brings warm air farther north than it used to, and cold area farther south in the winter. Overall, the boreal forests are suffering increasing drying because of global heating as are all the forests of North America.
Canadian firefighters, assisted by crews from around the world, can’t extinguish these fires because they are too large and have too much energy in them. Eventually significant rain will put the fires out.
Birds and Boreal Forests
According to the Audubon Society, the North American boreal forests provide nesting habitat for half of the bird species we see in the United States. Five billion birds come out of the boreal forests every fall to fly southward on migration to the tropics or areas of the United States. The birds have been nesting in these vast forests for tens of thousands of years because of the extensive varied habitat offered. Vast wetlands, millions of lakes, long undammed rivers, and diverse trees make this an idea place for birds and other wildlife like moose, wolves, bears, caribou, and smaller mammals.
Logging the Boreal Forest
Logging is a big economic activity in Canada, one that has decimated the rainforests of British Columbia and some of the boreal forests. Canada logs a million acres of boreal forest a year and with climate change, reforestation will be slower and more difficult than in the past.
A large portion of the toilet paper and other tissues in the US come from these logging operations. The majority of the wood cut is used for lumber with one percent, comprised of waste products, going to tissue manufacturing according to the Forest Products Association of Canada. Even so, the Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that these boreal forest logging operations release 26 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. Canada claims it only logs a half of one percent of its forests yearly.
The Future
The vastness of the boreal forests may lead some to dismiss the logging and fires as somewhat unimportant. But with the climate heating steadily with no relief in sight, we must consider that these fires could become annual events. Over time these most important carbon sink forests on earth will suffer serious damage, ruining their ability to absorb and sequester carbon.
– Tom Ribe
