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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Fierce fires lessen a forest’s appetite for carbon

Extreme blazes mean that woods in California take longer to return to their pre-fire rate of carbon uptake.
Burning trees silhouetted against enormous red flames.

The Bobcat fire burns in southern California in 2020. Such intense fires can reduce a forest’s capacity for absorbing carbon. Credit: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times/Getty

In the wake of ever-increasing wildfires, many of California’s forests are taking longer to recover their capacity to absorb carbon than they did a century ago1.

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Nature 616, 223 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00907-3

References

  1. Hemes, K. S., Norlen, C. A., Wang, J. A., Goulden, M. L. & Field, C. B. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 120, e2201954120 (2023).

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