Forest Fires Could Be Cooling the Earth?

[Anomalocaris]

A forest fire may not sound like a great way to cool off, but Earth's climate is a complicated beast. It turns out that some of the world's fiercest blazes are actually lowering our planet's temperatures.

In a paper which appears in Nature Geoscience this month, a group of ecologists demonstrated that these fires scorching Earth's northernmost forests can, paradoxically, have a chilling effect on our climate. A smoldering blaze kicks up plumes of heat-trapping soot, which eventually settle back to the ground, hastening snowmelt. Combustion also releases carbon dioxide, our planet's most important heat-trapping greenhouse gas. These effects, like the heat from the blaze itself, tend to warm the planet up.

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2352.html

But as wildfires eat through forests, they also expose the ground, and in the far north, that means uncovering snow and ice. The dark, leafy landscape becomes a bright, reflective one. In climate science lingo, reflectivity is called albedo, and it's a critically important factor for determining how much of the sun's energy our planet absorbs. By increasing a landscape's albedo, fires can reflect more of the sun's radiation back to space and cool the climate.

https://www.climate.gov/climate-and-energy-topics/albedo

Edited February 17, 2015 by Anomalocaris

[bubblykiss]

So smoke cools the earth.

I'mma gonna tell that I smoke to save the planet to the next whiny person who complains at me while I am enjoying a healthy death stick of menthol flavored joy.

[Von Bismarck]

There are far way more downsides to deforestation than upsides.

[Ashotep]

Maybe this is why it was so cold here this morning, -23F, it doesn't usually get that cold here. I'm freezing to death.

Edited February 19, 2015 by Ashotep