Holdover fire
Type of wildfire, peat fire that burns from year to year
In wildfires, a holdover fire, or overwintering fire is a peat fire which persists from year to year.
Fires
Such fires typically occur in Arctic tundra, smouldering during the winter under the snow and then becoming more intense during the summer.
A study conducted 2002–2018 in Alaska and the Northwest Territories found that this type of fire burned only 0.8% of the total area burned by all types of fires and that this type of fire caused only 0.5% of the total carbon emissions released by all types of fires.[1]
During the summer of 2019, such fires were estimated to have generated 173 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2),[2] with an estimate of 244 million tonnes from January to August 2019.[3] The smoke and soot from such fires darkens the region, so contributing to further warming and further fires.[4] The loss of peat is also a loss of a store for CO2.[3] Images from satellites such as Sentinel-2 have been used to identify such hot spots.[5]
See also
- Arctic methane emissions
- Climate change
- Polar amplification
References
- ^ Kann, Drew (19 May 2021). "'Zombie fires' are already smoldering in the Arctic. They could become more common as the planet warms". CNN. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
- ^ "The fires within the deep – Have Siberian fires been smouldering underground all winter?", The Economist, 6 June 2020
- ^ a b Harrabin, Roger (3 September 2020). "Zombie fires spark record Arctic CO2 emissions". BBC News.
- ^ Wheeling, Kate (30 June 2020), "The rise of zombie fires", Eos, 101 (101), doi:10.1029/2020EO146119
- ^ Rebecca Scholten; Sander Veraverbeke (2020), "Spatiotemporal patterns of overwintering fire in Alaska" (PDF), Fire Science Highlight, Alaska Fire Science Consortium
Further reading
- Aylin Woodward (22 May 2021). "'Zombie fires' smolder under the snow during the winter then rise from the dead come spring. They may get far more common". Business Insider.
External links
Media related to Holdover fire at Wikimedia Commons
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