Northern Wildfires Threaten Runaway Climate Change, Study Reveals

Dominic Stracqualursi

The article “Northern Wildfires Threaten Runaway Climate Change, Study Reveals”, which was published on December 10, 2011, discusses another dangerous effect of climate change. Climate change is causing wildfires that are already dangerous enough to grow even bigger. As serious of a problem as the wild fires are in a direct effect, it is the indirect effect that is proving to be more dangerous in the long run. As the fires increase so does the amount of green house gases, which are being released into the atmosphere. It has become such a grave issue because of the cyclical nature of the problem. The fires are growing in size because of the increase in climate temperature. The green house gases being released are greater because of the bigger fires, and the greater the amount of green house gases that enter the atmosphere the higher the climate temperature raises. The article goes on to say, “This cycle can be broken for a number of reasons, but likely not without dramatic changes to the boreal forest as we currently know it”. This article relates to our earth science class because we have covered the whole that is being created in our atmosphere. We learned that the hole in the ozone is because of CDC’s that are released in greenhouse gases like the ones in the fires. It is the hole in the ozone that causes the temperature of the earth to increase. Without the protection of our ozone we are exposed to greater heat from the sun and this greater can have effects like the melting of sea ice or an increase of wildfires. I think that the issue of global warming is not taken seriously enough by most people in today’s world and is clearly a source of a lot of the rising problems in the world. There have been a large number of effects that can be correlated to the rise of climate temperatures, with wildfires just being the most recent instance. I think that drastic steps need to be taken to reduce the amount of green house gases that are being pumped into the atmosphere before we have even more serious effects that have to be dealt with. As of right now there aren’t too many blatant life-altering effects of climate change. However, if we continue to not care about the pollution to the atmosphere there will be life-altering effects that future generations are going to have to deal.

"Northern Wildfires Threaten Runaway Climate Change, Study Reveals." Science Daily: News & Articles in Science, Health, Environment & Technology. 05 Dec. 2010. Web. 06 Dec. 2010. .