Wildfires often run rampant across the U.S. and the blazes spit out carbon dioxide-filled tar balls.
Researchers studied atmospheric changes from the 2011 Las Conchas fire that burned 150,000 acres of the New Mexico desert, the LA Times reported.
"This was just an opportunity in our backyard," Manvendra Dubey, a senior atmospheric scientist at the laboratory said. "It was a freebie for me, so I couldn't miss that opportunity."
The team set up monitoring devices around the fire, the tools allowed them to classify thousands of particles. Most climate models suggested cooling and warming from aerosols neutralize each other, but the scientist's research found otherwise.
The team concluded "spherical, carbon-based particles," or "tar balls" increase the heating effect of wildfires.
"We provided the data that shows that current estimates, which are close to zero or show a very slight warming, are incorrect and the warming will be higher," Dubey said. "We are confident this will change the results and show that fire emissions will have a tendency to warm."
The material "act[s] like a lens to focus sunlight and amplify the sunlight that soot absorbs," the study found.
The increase of U.S. wildfires over the past few years is a result of climate change, but they also release tons of aerosol into the atmosphere as they burn. The result can be a change in the way sunlight is absorbed, which in turn affects cloud formations.
"For a given amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, you could be condensing the water in many, many more small particles. So clouds could become brighter," Dubey said. "These tar balls can get embedded, and soot can get embedded in clouds, and the clouds can then absorb more sunlight and evaporate faster."
Wildfires are not the only scalding contributors to climate change, India and China both release emissions by burning biomass, such as charcoal and wood fires.
"All these things emit the same; if you burn wood in your open stove or you have a fire, you have some similar emissions," Dubey said. "I think this gives us all a common language to develop solutions to it."
