ANCHORAGE, Alaska, (Reuters) – A wildfire that burned over 400 square miles (1 million sq km) of Alaska tundra in the scorching summer of 2007 poured as much carbon into the atmosphere as the entire Arctic normally absorbs each year, according to a new study in the scientific journal Nature.
The fire, near the Anaktuvuk River of Alaska’s North Slope, was considered an unprecedented event at the time. It was, by far, the largest single wildfire on treeless Arctic tundra ever recorded, and was twice as big as all previously recorded Alaska tundra fires combined.
It may also be an ominous sign of climate problems in the future, according to the study and the researchers who conducted it.
The study, published on Thursday, measured the volume of carbon emitted by the months-long fire. Although massive, it covered only a tiny portion of the vast North Slope — at 2.1 million metric tons.
“It was the same order of magnitude as what the Arctic takes up and stores in plant biomass,” said Syndonia Bret-Harte of the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, one of the study’s authors.
That creates the potential for a “positive feedback” loop that would reinforce the warming trend in the far north, according to the study.
Repeated large fires might even cancel out any carbon-absorption benefits from increased plant growth in the Arctic made possible by the region’s warming climate, the researchers said.
Fires on the Arctic tundra are not unusual, but most blazes are very small and short-lived because of the cool climate and the dampness of the environment, Bret-Harte said.
The 2007 fire, however, occurred under extreme conditions — an especially hot, dry year, marked by the smallest Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded by satellite, plus strong winds. The lightning-sparked blaze began in July of that year and smoldered for weeks before it was whipped up by winds in September, when tundra plants were dried out, she said.