Using a natural experiment to foresee the fate of boreal carbon stores.

Dieleman et al. (Global Change Biology, 2020) undertook a meticulously designed and naturally executed experiment that revealed substantial legacy effects of past logging and fire disturbance on aboveground and belowground carbon losses following major wildfires that occurred in 2015 in southern boreal forests in central Saskatchewan, Canada. Such natural experiments are a critical element in Earth System science because they frame questions, refine hypotheses and generate empirical data essential for predicting the fate of global carbon stores in an increasingly fire prone world. This article is a Commentary on Dieleman et al., 26, 6062-6079.