Category: Wildfire
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The Amazon’s hottest days are warming more than twice as fast as its average
A new study in Communications Earth & Environment, co-authored at Exeter, shows that Amazonia’s climate extremes are changing far faster than its averages, and that the fastest-changing region is the central-north Amazon, far from the arc of deforestation.
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Burned Amazonian forests stay altered for at least 40 years, new lidar study shows
New spaceborne-lidar work presented at ATBC 2026 shows Amazonian forests in Acre remain measurably shorter, simpler and lower in biomass for at least 40 years after wildfire, recovering to only about 90% of unburned forest.
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Amazon Soil Carbon: The Missing Credit
Amazon Soil Carbon: Policy Brief Summary The conversion of forest to agriculture in the Amazon triggers a “deforestation multiplier”: the ecosystem loses carbon equivalent to about 1.2 times the original forest’s aboveground biomass. Current carbon-credit standards such as Verra’s Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) focus on standing timber, yet new evidence highlights the significant, unprotected carbon…
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‘Unprecedented’ wildfires in tropical peatlands during 20th century
A new study reveals an unprecedented increase in wildfires in tropical peatlands during the 20th century. Peatlands store vast quantities of carbon below the Earth’s surface – more than all the world’s forest biomass combined – but when they catch fire large amounts of the stored carbon is released into the atmosphere. Wildfires in tropical regions have been on the rise in recent decades, but the history and characteristics of wildfires in tropical peatlands remain largely unknown. …
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Seven study areas across five Amazon states: the road trips behind our wildfire soil research
The Amazon PyroCarbon project has covered thousands of kilometres across Mato Grosso, Rondônia, Amazonas, Acre, and Pará over the past three years. This is the story of the road trips, the Guerreira, and the soil that comes home with the team.
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PhD Scholarship: Soil carbon dynamics following Amazon forest wildfires (2026 entry)
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Research opportunities. A fully-funded PhD scholarship is available at the University of Exeter: Soil carbon dynamics following Amazon forest wildfires About the award Supervisors Lead Supervisor Dr Kees Jan Van Groenigen, Department of Geography, University of Exeter Additional Supervisors Professor…
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PhD Scholarship: Integrating sensing, modelling and data analytics to understand forest microclimate dynamics under fire, degradation and climate change in Amazonia
This opportunity has closed. For current PhD and postdoctoral opportunities in the Feldpausch group, see Research opportunities. A fully-funded PhD scholarship is available at the University of Exeter: Integrating sensing, modelling and data analytics to understand forest microclimate dynamics under fire, degradation and climate change in Amazonia Supervision Lead Supervisor: Professor Ted Feldpausch Co-Supervisors: Ilya…
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Soil carbon loss twice as severe with conversion to agriculture than with repeated wildfire in Amazonian forests
A new study shows the significant impact of recurring fires and agricultural conversion on soil carbon storage in the Amazon rainforest. The research, a collaboration between the University of Exeter (UoE) and Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA) at the University of São Paulo (USP), demonstrates substantial carbon loss and degradation of soil properties…
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Does fire in forests regrowing on old pastures reduce soil carbon? Fieldwork in central Amazonia
The Amazon rainforest, an important carbon sink, faces increasing threats from deforestation and wildfires. But what happens to the soil carbon after these disturbances? MSc student, Lorena Fleury, in the Tropical Forest Science Postgraduate Programme at the National Institute for Research in Amazonia (INPA), supervised by Prof. Ted Feldpausch, has been sampling soil in secondary…
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Fire reduces tree diversity and carbon in seasonal forests of the southern Amazon
We recently published a paper led by PhD student Maurivan Barros Pereira (State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT)), supervised by Prof. Ted Feldpausch and co-supervised by Drs Ben Hur Marimon and Fernando Elias da Silva. The findings were published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, “Post-fire changes in tree diversity, composition and carbon in…