Climate change leads to wildfires which leads to climate change, and it might be worse than we thought

We are in an unprecedented fire season in 2023. Warming temperatures and drier conditions caused by climate change are a major reason. But wildfires themselves also contribute to climate change creating a reinforcing feedback loop. And, new research indicates that this might be worse than previously thought.

It has been well established that black carbon absorbs energy from the sun, acting as an additional source of warming in the atmosphere. But, black carbon is more prevalent in darker plumes of smoke, which do not always occur from wildfires. It was thought that lighter coloured plumes were mostly made up of white carbon which reflects and scatters sunlight rather than absorbing it. However, Chakrabarty and colleagues (2023) have found that a previous undetected particle, brown carbon, exists in all plumes and absorbs a significant amount of energy from the sun. The absorption rate is a little less compared to black carbon but the brown carbon is four times more abundant.

This is a feedback loop because as more energy is absorbed, it results in more warming. More warming then leads to higher temperatures and increased extreme weather creating more drought and more storms which produce lightning, both of which lead to more forest fires.