TITLE: Alaska’s Underground Wildfire May Seriously Affect for Climate Change
MAIN KEYWORDS: climate change
TAGS: climate change, global warming, wildfire, alaska, fish creek fire, ecology, ecologist, permafrost, fish creek fire, carbon, fairbanks, underground fire, climatology, climatologists
Ecologists believe that Alaska’s wildfires are not hazardous to Alaska’s ecosystem, but may pose an even larger, more global effect on climate change as carbon is released into the atmosphere from the permafrost.
Fish Creek Fire in Alaska Underground But Not Gone
Though the flames from the Fish Creek Fire in Alaska have faded away to streams of billowing smoke, ecologists believe that the wildfire, which has seen moved underground, may have a devastating effect on climate change.
As the wildfire continues to burn underground, the heat will lick away at the
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Alaska wildfires have consumed nearly 5 million acres after a lightning storm in June sparked around 300 fires. An Undying Fire Thanks to the Ice: How Permafrost Affects Wildfires
The amazing part about Alaskan wildfires is the very thing that makes them so harmful, which is the fact that they don’t die out when the flames stop above the ground. Instead, the fires have a large resource of dried, dead organic material waiting underground to be burned away.
Called duff, the organic material is composed of leaves, grass, pine needles, and even trees. The duff falls onto the forest floor, accumulating over time to pile rather high in some places. Thanks to Alaska’s glacial temperatures, the duff never completely decomposes as it would if it had been in a warmer state.
Instead, it rests on a ground layer called permafrost, insulating the permanently frozen ground from the warm outside temperatures. But, as the blazes burn the duff, the permafrost has less insulating material, making it more vulnerable to the hotter