Zombie Fires

2. A dangerous cycle where warming leads to more fires, which lead to even more warming.
7. Fire releases carbon by breaking these chemical connections found in plant sugars.
9. To burn at low temperatures without a flame, much like a charcoal grill.
10. A simple sugar that plants use as a building block to grow.
12. How snow acts like a blanket to keep peat warm enough to stay alive during the winter.
13. Decomposers cannot do their jobs in bogs because there isn't enough of this gas available underground.
14. The process microbes use to get energy by breathing out CO2 as they digest ancient peat.
15. The specific frozen landscape where these zombie fires are most commonly occurring.
17. Organisms like bacteria and fungi that normally break down dead plant matter.
19. A term for a place, like a peatland, that stores more carbon than it releases.

1. Along with fibers and sugars, these are the buried plant parts that the fire eats underground.
3. The chemical reaction that occurs when fire hits peat and reacts with oxygen.
4. The nickname for an overwintering fire that comes back to life in the spring.
5. The process plants use to take in carbon dioxide and water to create glucose.
6. A gas, other than CO2, that is released when decomposers digest old peat.
8. The place where carbon is released as CO2 gas after a fire or during thawing.
11. The frozen ground in the Arctic that is currently melting as temperatures rise.
16. What plants get from the sun to start the process of photosynthesis.
18. A thick, sponge-like layer of organic matter made of halfrotted mosses and plants.