Pools of old carbon in the soil of boreal forests historically safe from combustion are being released by more frequent and larger wildfires, a team led by researchers at Northern Arizona University announced in Nature this week. As the climate of these forests in the Northwest Territories of Canada becomes warmer and drier and prone to more frequent… Read more
Scott Goetz
NAU scientists on NASA mission to revolutionize the way forest carbon and biodiversity habitat are measured from space
SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Photo credit GEDI Science Team) On December 5, 2018, the SpaceX Commercial Resupply Mission 16 successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying a groundbreaking payload in the Dragon capsule of its Falcon 9 rocket to the International… Read more
Animals help mitigate climate change through influence on carbon cycle, NAU remote sensing scientists say
Dec. 7, 2018
Predicting and managing the global carbon cycle requires understanding the ecosystem processes that control carbon uptake and storage.
Although scientists generally think of carbon cycling in terms of the uptake and exchange between ecosystem plant and soil pools and the atmosphere, a new study of animals and the zoogeochemistry of the carbon cycle published in the journal Science shows animals also… Read more
NAU scientists publish first estimate of carbon emissions from 2014 mega-fires in Canada’s boreal forests
The boreal forest is home to one-third of the Earth’s forest cover and stores 40 percent of the planet’s terrestrial carbon. North America’s boreal forest alone, which spans the northern portion of the continent from Alaska all the way to Newfoundland, covers an astounding 1.5 billion acres—more than 2.3 million square miles.
As mega-fires in the boreal forest become more frequent and more intense, scientists believe the burning of these… Read more
NAU scientists lead DoD project to assess environmental impact of changing climate on boreal forests
The boreal forest, or taiga, is the largest terrestrial biome on Earth, extending across North America, Europe and Asia north of the 50th parallel. Representing nearly one-third of the world’s forest cover, the boreal forest plays a significant role in the planet’s biodiversity. Its coniferous spruce, pine and larch trees flourish in the long, severe winters and short summers of the subarctic climate. The forest… Read more