The CharXive Challenge. Regulation of global carbon cycles by vegetation fires

Abstract

It is an open, but not unanswerable, question as to how much atmospheric CO2 is sequestered globally by vegetation fires. In this work I conceptualise the question in terms of the general CharXive Challenge, discuss a mechanism by which thermoconversion of biomass may regulate the global distribution of carbon between reservoirs, show how suppression of vegetation fires by human activities may increase the fraction of carbon in the atmospheric pool, and pose three specific CharXive Challenges of crucial strategic significance to our management of global carbon cycles.