University of Illinois University in the United States found that the tundra fires that have become frequent in recent years have accelerated the destruction of permafrost in the Arctic. This is reported in an article published in the Magazine One Earth.
Researchers analyzed the satellite and aeronautical Alaska’s satellite and aeronautics, covering the seven last decades to calculate the pace of thermocartent formation. Thermocars occur when the soil and soil are sediated as a result of the insertion of underground ice, which should be intensified when warming. Modeling based on machine learning made it possible to assess the relative contribution to this process of climate change, tundra fires and landscape features.
The frequency of the appearance of thermoclasts in Arctic Alaska increased by 60 percent, starting in the 1950s. Despite the fact that the main factor was the change in climate, the tundra fires played a disproportionately large role. In the tundra touched the tundra, the thermocars began to meet nine times more often. In general, fires covered only three percent of the Arctic landscape, but they are responsible for 10.5 percent of thermocartes.
How to make the authors of work, in the aggregate of their results suggest that climate change and forest fires will jointly accelerate the appearance of thermocars as global warming in this century.