Several months ago the new data we were trying to understand is the impact of Brazil’s wildfires. In a new paper in Science Advances, Paulo Brando and company report that by the year 2050, the emissions from fires could release more carbon than the remaining forests are able to sequester. This will make the forests with their fires a carbon source instead of a carbon sink. 

This paper was written and submitted before we understood the horror that is this year’s Australian bush fires. 

In the next couple of years, we’re going to be learning our world is responds to climate change in ways we previously never imagined. So far, all of the surprises have been in the direction of things being worse than we imagined. I don’t know what the answer is here. Plant every piece of land, and be careful of every piece spark of fire.  Be good to one another. This is all I’ve got.

More on this:

Wildfires could flip parts of the Amazon from a carbon sponge to a source by 2050 (ScienceNews)