Mike Waddington 🇨🇦

Our latest paper!

Regional Wildfire Smoke Reduces Boreal Forest Carbon Uptake

Van Huizen et al.

Smoke-related inhibition of photosynthesis via reduced light availability should be considered when quantifying the net impacts of boreal wildfires on net radiative forcing & carbon balance

Cumulative Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) observed at the eddy covariance tower for DOY 128–168 in years 2009–2011. Note the large decrease around DOY 138 in 2011 due to wildfire smoke.

New paper out - Regional wildfire smoke reduces boreal forest
carbon uptake

iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Wildfires are a source of carbon and they can reduce the carbon sink from the forest. Cumulative Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) shows a big drop in 2011 Day 138 due to wildfire smoke.

Mer Bleue Bog 'filled with bombs' according to new drone scans | CBC News A recent project by Carleton University graduate students used drones to search for magnetic signals linked to unexploded bombs in the Mer Bleue Bog, which was used as a practice bombing range in the ...

There is the peatland carbon bomb and then there are bombs in the peatland!

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Canadian wildfire numbers and status https://www.ciffc.ca/

Map of Canada showing location and status of wildfires https://www.ciffc.ca/

Canada now has over 500 out of control (OC) wildfires (299 Monitored and 208 Actioned =507 OC fires). These numbers are similar to the 2023 record smashing season except this year only half the country is on fire.

Q: How does a peat scientist that enjoys adventure spend the #WorldBogDay weekend?

A: 180+ km of trekking, paddling, MTB, and orienteering across the peaty northern Ontario landscape at the Wilderness Traverse 24 hour Adventure Race.

Completed the full course again!

📷: L. Moreira, M. Ashmore

🌿 New in IJWF:

Belcher et al. explore seasonal changes in flammability across UK heathlands, showing that live fuel moisture dynamics drive shifts in fire behaviour. Their fuel modelling reveals up to 4× differences in fire spread based on phenology.
👉 doi.org/10.1071/WF24...

#IJWildlandFire

Canadian wetlands are treasures that deserve protection Canada is home to a quarter of the world’s remaining wetlands. Despite decades of efforts, wetlands continue to be under threat around the world.

COP15 of the Ramsar Convention starts today. Here in Canada we have the privilege of being home to a quarter of the world's remaining wetlands. Let's not forget what a treasure they are.
theconversation.com/canadian-wet...

Check out our new paper "Ecohydrological drivers of Boreal Shield peatland fire refugia" in Ecohydrology.

Authors: Alex Tekatch, Chantel Markle, Sophie Wilkinson, Paul Moore, @mercury-ecohydro.bsky.social, @peatofmind.bsky.social

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Carbon emissions from Canada's wildfires are spiking. But that's not counting our vast peatlands | CBC News A new government model to estimate peatland emissions and their impact on climate change could provide a new perspective on the problem — and spark new discussions about solutions.

CBC getting the word out there on peatland wildfire emissions, an increasingly important topic as fire seasons keep getting worse in Canada.
www.cbc.ca/news/science...

CBC story on Canadian peatlands and wildfire featuring @gregverkaik.bsky.social @olefeldt.bsky.social @wetland-ghg.bsky.social

Great day for bays!
Hole-in-the-Wall, Big Sound, Georgian Bay.

Hydrology Paper of the Day @gregverkaik.bsky.social @micaheckert.bsky.social @peatofmind.bsky.social on how changes to drainage and spatial burn patterns affected biogeochemical cycles and vegetation cover in a peatland: depth of burn, carbon loss, and burn severity in context of a fuel load model.

Map of Canada showing locations of fires and their status as of july 12, 2025

Area burned in Canada for 2025 is now at 5.6 M ha exceeding the total for the entire 2024 fire season. This fire season is not as bad as 2023 that had 9.37 M ha burned by July 12, 2023. However, 2025 is a very active year with 365 fires out of control and 2 months still left in the fire season.

Digging deep: Fieldwork helping Canada prepare for a hotter, drier future Greg Verkaik's research aims to better understand how peatlands influence wildfire behaviour - and how we can reduce the risk of wildfires.

As Canada braces for another intense wildfire season, Greg Verkaik is digging into how drying peatlands are fuelling deep-burning fires. His fieldwork is providing critical insight in a warming world.

More: brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/fie...

#Wildfires #Peatlands #McMasterExperts

Check our new paper “Fuel Loads and Peat Smoldering Carbon Loss Increase Following Drainage in a Forested Boreal Peatland” published in JGR-Biogeosciences: doi.org/10.1029/2024...
@micaheckert.bsky.social, Sophie Wilkinson, Paul Moore, and @peatofmind.bsky.social [1/9]

Tansley Review now out @newphyt.bsky.social nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... big team effort involving @garethclay.bsky.social @jpritson.bsky.social @em-shuttleworth.bsky.social @queenofpeat.bsky.social @peatofmind.bsky.social @mercury-ecohydro.bsky.social @adamjohnst.bsky.social (1/2)

The area burned in the Canadian 2025 fire season has hit 5 million ha. Third active fire season in a row that combined has burned 7% of the Canadian forest. Currently we have 346 fires out of control (192 monitored out of control (OC) and 154 OC that are being actioned) so expect the number to rise.

Toxic metals found in UK peatlands could pose health risk Wildfires and climate change could see decades' worth of pollutants released into the water courses.

Early results from our cutting-edge PIPES project at Queen's University Belfast featured on BBC Northern Ireland this morning.

Toxic metals found in UK peatlands could pose health risk www.bbc.com/news/article...

🇨🇦 Happy Canada Day! 🇨🇦
#Never51

It's official!

Line Rochefort is the Queen of #Peatland #Restoration!

Another metric of her legacy. 5 of the 6 most productive peat researchers (# articles fractionalized) were, or are, members of the research group she started in the 90s.

#1 Rochefort
#2 Strack
#3 Price
#5 Andersen
#6 Waddington

A global development and dynamics of peatland restoration: a bibliometric analysis Peatland ecosystems play a critical role in conservation of biodiversity and climate regulation, but face ongoing degradation from land-use change, mi…

🌍 Big news in peatland science!

5 current & former PERG researchers are in the global top 10 for peatland restoration! 🌿

🏆 Shoutout to Line Rochefort #1 worldwide!
💥 @ulaval.ca also ranks #1 globally!

📖 Read: shorturl.at/uJl6A

#Peatlands #PeatSky
@wetland-ghg.bsky.social @peatofmind.bsky.social

🎙️ A must-listen! 🌿🔥

@peatofmind.bsky.social was recently interviewed on CBC’s Québec AM to discuss the importance of peatland restoration as a nature-based solution to reduce the impact of wildfires.

shorturl.at/nEbt5

#PeatlandMatter #PeatSky #Wildfires #ClimateChange #EcologicalRestoration

“They're missing the whole point in that we're seeing more fires, a longer fire season, more intense fires, more severe fires, because the climate is changing due to human activities,” said fire expert Mike Flannigan.

“It's a serious omission, and that's being very polite.”

The role of catchment characteristics, discharge, and active- layer thaw in seasonal stream chemistry across 10 permafrost catchments Abstract. High-latitude catchments are rapidly warming, leading to altered precipitation regimes, widespread permafrost degradation, and shifts in stream chemistry across major arctic rivers. In headw...

New paper alert in HESS with Erin Nicholls and @seankcarey.bsky.social ! We used generalized additive models to assess the drivers of seasonality in stream chemistry across ten permafrost catchments in the Yukon Territory! (1/n)

hess.copernicus.org/articles/29/...

Total estimated emissions from Canadian #wildfires continuing to increase sharply (to 10 June) with many intense fires in BC, AB, SK, MB & ON. #CopernicusAtmosphere GFAS data based on MODIS🛰️ active fire obs ads.atmosphere.copernicus.eu/datasets/cam... @copernicusecmwf.bsky.social @ecmwf.int

graph showing annual area burned in BC by year for 1950-2025

Area burned for BC is almost 500,000 hectares so far this year. Compared with annual area burned in BC 1950-2024, 2025 is already in 7th place (1950-2025) with much of the fire season ahead of us. The years in red 2017-2025 have more area burned than the years in green (1950-2016).

The smoke from Canada's wildfires may be even more toxic than usual The country's legacy of mining means that toxic metals could be carried along plumes of smoke, endangering people in its path.

The smoke from Canada’s wildfires may be even more toxic than usual.

A legacy of mining means that toxic metals could be carried along plumes of smoke.

grist.org/climate/cana...

#Wildfire #Smoke #Wildfires #Climate #Air #AQI

… and some photos of BDB at 25 years old.

An incredible #peatland #restoration success story!

@gret-perg.bsky.social

🎉 Today we celebrate 25 yrs since the restoration of the Bois-des-Bel peatland — the first large-scale peatland restoration project in North America.

🌱 A milestone that shaped the future of peatland science.

#Peatlands #Restoration #PeatlandsMatter

Happy #WorldPeatlandsDay!

This week @gret-perg.bsky.social celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Bois-des-Bel #peatland #restoration project!

Throwback to 2000 and our first eddy covariance measurements on a restored peatland.

#BDB25