Never thought about that one before. Forest fires have always been simply an effect, in my mind, of higher temps, drier climates and longer summer seasons.
This new study makes it sound more like a vicious feedback loop in which forest fires are both a cause and effect of global warming.
Of course we all know that wildfires are a natural and healthy part of all ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems can handle them and actually benefit from them. The problem is that many forest ecosystems are now so out of whack and so clogged with fuel, that we have the threat of "megafires" across the west. Which makes the feedback-loop situation even worse, I imagine.
From AP via SFGate:
A warming climate will fuel larger, more frequent wildfires in the Sierra Nevada and other parts of the West, and the fires will contribute to climate change, according to a new study.
More than 20 international scientists, in the report published Friday in the journal Science, said fire is not only a consequence of climate change but an important cause.
"Fire also influences the climate system. This is what we call a feedback," Jennifer Balch, a fire expert at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told the Reno Gazette-Journal.
