The far north is both a massive carbon sink and a potent environmental time bomb. The region stores a huge amount of CO2 in boreal forests and underlying soils. Organic peat soil, for instance, covers just 3 percent of the Earth’s land area (there’s some in tropical regions, too), yet it contains a third of its terrestrial carbon. And Arctic permafrost has locked away thousands of years’ worth of plant matter, preventing rot that would release clouds of planet-heating carbon dioxide and methane.

遥远的北方既是一个巨大的碳汇，也是一个潜在的环境定时炸弹。该地区在北方森林和底层土壤中储存了大量的二氧化碳。例如，有机泥炭土只占地球陆地面积的3%(在热带地区也有一些)，但它含有三分之一的陆地碳。北极永久冻土层锁住了数千年的植物物质，防止因腐烂而释放出温室气体的二氧化碳和甲烷。

But in a pair of recent papers, scientists have found that wildfires and human meddling are reducing northern ecosystems’ ability to sequester carbon, threatening to turn them into carbon sources. That will in turn accelerate climate change, which is already warming the Arctic four and a half times faster than the rest of the world, triggering the release of still more carbon—a gnarly feedback loop.

但在最近的两篇论文中，科学家们发现，野火和人类的干预正在降低北方生态系统固碳的能力，甚至有可能将它们变成碳源。这反过来又会加速气候变化，北极变暖的速度已经是世界其他地区的4.5倍，从而引发更多的碳排放——一个棘手的反馈循环。

In fact, over 100 wildfires are burning across Alberta, Canada, right now, forcing nearly 30,000 people from their homes—an “unprecedented situation” in the region. The annual area burned in Canada has doubled since the 1970s, says Mike Flannigan, a fire scientist at Thompson Rivers University. (He wasn't involved in either of the new studies.) “A warmer world means more fire,” he says. “As the temperature warms, the atmosphere gets very efficient at sucking moisture out of dead fuels. So it means more fuels available to burn, which leads to high-intensity fires, which are difficult to impossible to extinguish.”

事实上，目前有100多场森林大火正在加拿大阿尔伯塔省肆虐，迫使近30,000人离开家园，这是该地区的“前所未有的情况”。汤普森河流大学的火灾科学家迈克·弗兰尼根说，自20世纪70年代以来，加拿大每年被烧毁的面积翻了一番。(他没有参与新研究)。他说。“更温暖的世界意味着更多的火灾，随着温度的升高，大气层在从腐烂燃料中吸取水分方面变得非常有效。也就意味着有更多的燃料可供燃烧，这会导致高强度的火灾，而这些火灾很难扑灭。”