According to a study published in Nature, the 2023 wildfires in Canada released a staggering 647 megatons of carbon, surpassing the annual emissions of seven of the top ten fossil fuel emitters in 2022. This finding has heightened concerns about the long-term viability of forests as carbon sinks. The wildfires consumed over 15 million hectares of forest in Canada in 2023, approximately 4% of the country’s total forest area. The burned area was seven times the 40-year average. Researchers quantified the carbon emissions from Canadian wildfires using satellite observations of carbon monoxide in smoke plumes. They estimated that these fires released 647 teragrams of carbon, significantly exceeding the typical range of Canadian wildfire emissions (estimated at 29-121 teragrams over the past decade). The authors attribute the intense fire activity to exceptionally hot and dry conditions in 2023, the hottest and driest year on record since 1980. Given current climate change trends, they anticipate that similar climatic conditions will become increasingly common by 2050.
