Tundra Burning

This is an amazing story from the Arctic tundra which I had not heard before. Reported on NPR this morning with the long story in the magazine "Nature." Image by Alaska Fire Service.

"The Arctic tundra has been relatively thunderstorm-free for 10,000 years. But conditions are changing in the far north, and in 2007 a lightning strike caused the biggest wildfire ever recorded on the North Slope of Alaska. The tundra is normally a carbon sink, but scientists report in the journal Nature that that single fire released more carbon into the atmosphere than the entire Arctic tundra absorbs every year."