It has been another Smoked summerWith estimates, which suggests that 2025 will be the second year of the Forest Fire season of Canada. More than 5.5 million hectares have already been burned, almost triple the average of 10 years for this time of year.
But it is not just the forests that are burning. Canada is home to a quarter of the world’s bogs: swampy wetlands that are a rich carbon store of millions of vegetable and decomposition animal life.
They are also burning. But the fire emissions scale in the peat bogs is not counted in current government statistics.
However, that is about to change, With a new government effort Estimate boobs emissions and their impact on climate change.
“The best capable I am to quantify these impacts, we can better mitigate them,” said Kelly Bona, who leads the effort to produce a Canadian model for the emissions of bogs in the environment and the climate change of Canada.
Bona said the new data could be included as soon as next year in Canada Official greenhouse gas reports To the UN. Its inclusion would provide a new look at the seriousness of the problem, which researchers say they are getting worse.
Why do peat fires are a climate problem
Much of the Canada’s bogs are found in the Boreal forest area, where trees such as black fir, which are prone to burning, are common. The presence of these trees, along with rich carbon deposits on the ground, can make the peatars very flammable, especially during dry periods.
Turba fires also burned for longer periods, instead of climbing in a giant flame. Some of these fires may burn for months or years, according to researchers, releasing large amounts of their carbon stored in the atmosphere.
Greg Verkaik, peat researcher and doctoral candidate at McMaster University, collects field measurements after fire to estimate emissions. He carefully measures the depth of the mob at several points to discover how much he has burned.
His time in the field gives him a look close to the impact of climate change and the worsening of forest fires.
“You get days when you can’t go to the field because everything is smoked and it is difficult to breathe and it is not safe for you to be out there,” he said.
“You are seeing it more frequently, especially in these last seasons of fire where it has been really bad.”
Forest fire emissions do not have for the anthropogenic (caused by humans) totals of Canada, but it is still reported that they help inform the public and follow up on how forests are.
In recent years, statistics have been sobering: forest fire emissions in 2023, the worst year of fire in the history of Canada, reached one billion tons – Significantly more than the 694 million tons of emissions attributed to human activity.
The feedback cycle is that climate change has caused the climate of fire to be more frequent and severe, and those fires are worsening climate change itself.
In the peat bogs, investigation He has shown that forest fires accelerate the fusion of Permafrost, which in turn releases carbon, according to David Olefeldt, peat researcher and assistant professor at the University of Alberta.
Olefeldt also said that the bogs continue to emit carbon long after a fire, since all the carbon on the ground takes longer to get lost in the atmosphere.
“If you want to understand the total impact of the forest fire, you must understand what happens in the years and even the decades after fire,” he said.
A study published in 2024 used the model developed by Canada to estimate the greenhouse gas emissions of the boreal and temperate peatars of Canada. Preliminary results Suggest that fire -related emissions are approximately 11.5 million tons per year, but the estimates noticed may vary significantly from one year to another.
Forest fires in recent years highlight these variations. 2020 was a smooth fire, with emissions of only 13 million tons, while 2021 was a more severe season, with dumping emissions to 270 million tons.
According to the study, the bogs are generally a carbon sink, absorbing and storing more carbon than they emit, which helps counteract the effects of climate change.
But during a severe fire season, they become a carbon sourceand release more than they absorb.
How can you use better bogs emissions numbers?
The new data would have a variety of practical uses, both for the development of resources and for conservation in the peat bogs.
Bona said the data could be used to perform environmental evaluations for peat projects. Olefeldt said that knowing more about bogtrack emissions, including the identification of those at a higher risk, could help help in protection discussions.
Maria Strack, professor at the University of Waterloo who leads Can-PEat, an important research collaboration in the peat bogs, said that most peat bogs are in regions Where there is interest In resource extraction.
The new data could help inform future decisions about the development of mines and other infrastructure in those areas, he said.
“There are risks that mining disturbs more peat and all infrastructure, such as roads to access those mines, will also change the hydrology of the peat bogs, which could lead to more emissions.”
He also sees them as a solution based on nature to combat climate change.
“We have approximately a quarter of the entire carbon stock of the world’s mob of the world, and I think that most Canadians do not even know what a bog is,” he said.
“So I’m always trying to raise awareness about these ecosystems, how special they are and that is really like a national treasure that we have.”
