#The world after 20 years drivers
The new data provides a long-term view of these types of fires over the last 20 years at a higher resolution than ever before, and helps researchers distinguish the impact of tree cover loss from fires and loss from other drivers like agriculture and forestry. Stand-replacing fires cause long-term changes to forest structure and soil chemistry, and differ from lower intensity understory fires that provide ecological benefits for many forests. Researchers at the University of Maryland used Landsat satellite imagery to map the area of tree cover lost to stand-replacing forest fires (fires that kill all or most of the living overstory) annually from 2001-2021. How do we measure tree cover loss from fires? Increasing fire-related tree cover loss in boreal forests is likely due to the fact that northern high-latitude regions are warming at a faster rate than the rest of the planet, contributing to longer fire seasons, greater fire frequency and severity, and larger burned areas in these regions. Though fire is a natural part of how boreal forests function ecologically, fire-related tree cover loss increased by a rate of about 110,000 hectares (3%) per year over the last 20 years - about half the total global increase.
The large majority - roughly 70% - of all fire-related tree cover loss over the past two decades occurred in boreal regions. Here’s a look at some of the places most impacted by increasing forest fires, based on the latest data: Boreal Forest Fires Threaten to Release Deep Soil Carbon This feedback loop, combined with the expansion of human activities like agriculture into forested areas, is driving much of the increase in fire activity we see today, including recent record-setting fires in France and other areas in Europe.
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