boreal

Boreal forests contain diverse fungal endophytes essential for plant health and ecosystem resilience, with new research revealing their unique biodiversity and climate sensitivity, emphasizing the importance of understanding and preserving these fungi amidst changing climates.Spruce, pine, fir, and additional varieties of trees dominate the chilly expanses of territory that stretch across North America, northern Europe, and Russia, forming a vast circumpolar belt around the globe. These boreal forests represent the most…

Canada is home to the largest boreal forest in the world, a vast expanse of wilderness rich in biodiversity that stretches from coast to coast.But a major new study examining nearly a half century of logging in Ontario and Quebec warns that clear-cutting has left forests in the provinces severely depleted — and puts woodland caribou at risk.The peer-reviewed research, published in the academic journal Land, found that logging practices between 1976 and 2020 have resulted in the loss of more than 14 million hectares of…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain Lightning is the dominant cause of wildfire ignition in boreal forests—areas of global importance for carbon storage—and will increase in frequency with climate change, according to new research. Dr. Matthew Jones of the University of East Anglia's (UEA) Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research, is…

Smoke rising from an active fire in the Northwest Territories. Credit: Sander Veraverbeke "Zombie fires" are fires that ignite in one fire season, smolder through the winter months under the snow, and re-emerge early in the spring before lightning and human caused ignitions begin in earnest. Northern fire managers prefer the term…

The innovative sampling design was home-built for the study, enabling accurate ecosystem-scale measurements of emissions via fast response and low losses. A high flow (5000 litres per minute) through the chimney inlet enabled sampling of the sticky highly reactive organic compounds without any inlet wall losses. A 3-D sonic anemometer is mounted above the inlet to measure wind speed in all 3 directions enabling the researchers to do eddy covariance. The…

CLIMATEWIRE | Boreal forest fires in northern Eurasia and North America — including parts of Canada, Alaska and Siberia — spewed record-breaking levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2021, new research finds. In a typical year, these northern blazes account for about 10 percent of the planet’s wildfire-related carbon emissions. But in 2021, their share skyrocketed to 23 percent. Heat and drought are likely to blame, the researchers say. Both North America and Eurasia experienced severe heat waves in the…

Aerial view of Alaska out the window of a NASA Gulfstream III plane. The land is mostly lush and green, with lakes dotting it and rivers snaking through the landscape. The sky is blue and has puffy white clouds. Credit: NASA / Sofie Bates From the window of a NASA Gulfstream III research aircraft, Alaska looks like a pristine wilderness untouched by humans. The land is covered in lush, green vegetation and dotted with bright…

(a) Regression of the winter SST (shading, unit: ℃) and 850 hPa winds (vectors, unit: m s-1) anomalies on the summer WNPAC index during 1979–1999. (b) as in (a), but in spring. (c) Same as in (a) but in summer. (d) (e) (f) are the same as (a) (b) (c) but for the 2000–2020 period. The blue and red boxes indicate the WNP region and the IO region, respectively. Stippling represents the precipitation anomalies exceeding the 90% confidence level and…

Google is reportedly working on a new Chromecast with Google TV that could replace the company's older third-generation Chromecast that was released in 2018. The upcoming Chromecast is said to feature a maximum resolution of 1080p, could feature the company's Google TV interface and come with a remote. The upcoming Chromecast with Google TV is also said to come with AV1 hardware decoding support and could be priced lower than the regular Chromecast with Google TV which comes with 4K video support.According to a report by…