Man-made global heating has long been presented as a relatively simple chain of cause and effect: humans disrupt the carbon cycle by burning fossil fuels, thereby increase the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, which in turn leads to higher temperatures around the globe. “However, it becomes increasingly clear that this is not the end of the story. Forest fires become more frequent all over the world, release additional CO2 into the atmosphere, and further reinforce the global warming that enhanced forest fire risk in the first place. This is a textbook example of what climate scientists call a positive feedback mechanism,” stresses David De Vleeschouwer, a postdoctoral researcher at MARUM—Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen.
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Source: Phys.org