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Calgary flood of 2013
Credit: Ryan L.C. Quan via Wikimedia Commons

Most Canadians live south of Canada's vast northern boreal forests and perhaps see them as a romantic, but remote part of the Canadian identity.

But increasing instances of extreme weather this year—the Calgary, Manitoba and Toronto floods, to name but three—served as a reminder of the boreal forest's crucial role in climate regulation, which impacts Canadians, Americans, and others around the world.

While there are a number of interrelated causes of extreme weather, the boreal forest is one part of the global equation that regulates global weather patterns. Among its most influential global roles, Canada's boreal forest acts as North America's "Fort Knox of Carbon" and is one of the world's largest freshwater store houses. These attributes are vital in impacting our global climate by keeping carbon locked in the ground and through sustaining global ocean currents, helping to regulate global temperatures.

Ensuring that Canada's boreal remains the world's most intact large forest is particularly critical given recent studies confirming that continued warming along with increased industrial disturbance would release more of the carbon stored in Canada's boreal forest. How well or poorly it is preserved is, and will remain, a factor in the lives of tens of millions of people in Canada and across the world in 2014.

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