[Special Issue News] Forest Health: The new North

For 7 weeks last year, Yellowknife was besieged by smoke. In the vast evergreen forests encircling this small city in Canada's Northwest Territories, years of drought had set the scene for a historic fire year. Across the territories, 3.4 million hectares burned—an area equal to the state of Maryland, and seven times the annual average. The smoke darkened the sky, stung eyes, and filled Yellowknife residents with "a sense of panic," says Frank Lepine, who manages wildfire response for the Northwest Territories government. When the snow fell and the fires died, Lepine's army of firefighters—about 1000 strong at one point—could stand down. But for scientists, the work is just beginning. The fires, they say, were an extreme example of the forces transforming the boreal forest, a stronghold of spruce, pine, and other conifers that rings the top of the planet. With its millions of square kilometers of pristine timber, thick carpet of moss and needles, and organic-rich frozen soil, the boreal forest stores more carbon than any other land ecosystem. And more than any other forest, it is bearing the brunt of climate change, warming roughly twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
Author: Tim Appenzeller

Source: Science: This Week - August 21, 2015 Category: Science Authors: Tim Appenzeller Tags: Forest Health Source Type: research