The study, published in Nature Climate Change, says permafrost thaw in the region will likely drive "abrupt" climate change that will happen with "little or no warning." Most alarming, the authors found the severity of wildfires in the Northwest Territories and Yukon could double from one year to the next and stay at that higher rate.
"Suddenly we start getting fires that are twice as intense as before, so it's easy to see how that affects the ecosystems," said Bernardo Teufel, one of the study's authors and a PhD student at 缅北强奸.