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Russians fail to manage their swamps and forests. They burn regularly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_

Russians fail to manage their swamps and forests. They burn regularly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_wildfires I bet that contributed a lot to the 2010-s CO2.

projectorlochsa 10y ago
Deforestation of Argentinian and Brazilian agriculture tops that any day. Phytoplankton loss does that too.
- clydethefrog 10y ago
  Plus the burning of forests in Indonesia to make room for farming palmoil. We're all in this together.
- Const-me 10y ago
  There’re important differences. When you just burn a forest, you release carbon that was in the atmosphere a few years or decades ago. Those trees would die eventually, and most of the carbon would go to the atmosphere anyway. When you dry a swamp and burn a peat bog, you release carbon that was in the atmosphere centuries ago. Under normal circumstances, that carbon would stay underground for millennia.
tomp 10y ago
Burning renewables (wood) is fundamentally different than burning fossil fuels.
- Const-me 10y ago
  Most of the territory affected by those fires was peat bogs. Those are modern analog of those carboniferous-period forests. While some people consider peat as renewable, the renew rate is very slow. Until burned, there was a lot of carbon stored for quite some time.
MagnumOpus 10y ago
That's not from sequestered carbon, so over a decade it is probably zero net CO2 contribution - forests grow and sequester carbon, then they burn and release it, rinse, repeat. Now, the methane released from underneath thawing permafrost - that's actually dangerous - but there's not much that can be done to manage that to my knowledge...
- Const-me 10y ago
  Large parts of the territory affected by the fires were once peat bogs: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Hammarlund/publication/264039044/figure/fig1/AS:296035403485193@1447591748394/Figure-1-Location-of-study-sites-Map-showing-the-distribution-of-northern-peatlands.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Hammarlund/publicat... The carbon in those was sequestered; under normal circumstances, it would remain buried for millennia.

projectorlochsa 10y ago

Deforestation of Argentinian and Brazilian agriculture tops that any day. Phytoplankton loss does that too.

clydethefrog 10y ago
Plus the burning of forests in Indonesia to make room for farming palmoil. We're all in this together.
Const-me 10y ago
There’re important differences. When you just burn a forest, you release carbon that was in the atmosphere a few years or decades ago. Those trees would die eventually, and most of the carbon would go to the atmosphere anyway. When you dry a swamp and burn a peat bog, you release carbon that was in the atmosphere centuries ago. Under normal circumstances, that carbon would stay underground for millennia.

tomp 10y ago

Burning renewables (wood) is fundamentally different than burning fossil fuels.

Const-me 10y ago
Most of the territory affected by those fires was peat bogs. Those are modern analog of those carboniferous-period forests. While some people consider peat as renewable, the renew rate is very slow. Until burned, there was a lot of carbon stored for quite some time.

MagnumOpus 10y ago

That's not from sequestered carbon, so over a decade it is probably zero net CO2 contribution - forests grow and sequester carbon, then they burn and release it, rinse, repeat. Now, the methane released from underneath thawing permafrost - that's actually dangerous - but there's not much that can be done to manage that to my knowledge...

Const-me 10y ago
Large parts of the territory affected by the fires were once peat bogs: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Hammarlund/publication/264039044/figure/fig1/AS:296035403485193@1447591748394/Figure-1-Location-of-study-sites-Map-showing-the-distribution-of-northern-peatlands.png https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dan_Hammarlund/publicat... The carbon in those was sequestered; under normal circumstances, it would remain buried for millennia.