UK peatland fires are supercharging carbon emissions as climate change causes hotter, drier summers
A new study led by the University of Cambridge has revealed that as our springs and summers get hotter and drier, the UK wildfire season is being stretched and intensified. More fires, taking hold over more months of the year, are causing more carbon to be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Fires on peatlands, which are carbon-rich, can almost double global fire-driven carbon emissions. Researchers found that despite accounting for only a quarter of the total UK land area that burns each year, dwarfed by moor and heathland, peatland fires have caused up to 90% of annual UK fire-driven carbon emissions since 2001 – with emissions ...











