pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Vast CO2 release from Australian fires in 2019-2020 constrained by satellite - PubMed

. 2021 Sep;597(7876):366-369.

doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03712-y. Epub 2021 Sep 15.

Guido R van der Werf³, Sander Houweling^{4

3}, Joannes D Maasakkers⁴, Tobias Borsdorff⁴, Jochen Landgraf⁴, Paul Tol⁴, Tim A van Kempen⁴, Richard van Hees⁴, Ruud Hoogeveen⁴, J Pepijn Veefkind^{5

6}, Ilse Aben^{4

7}

Affiliations

PMID: 34526704
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03712-y

Vast CO₂ release from Australian fires in 2019-2020 constrained by satellite

Ivar R van der Velde et al. Nature. 2021 Sep.

Abstract

Southeast Australia experienced intensive and geographically extensive wildfires during the 2019-2020 summer season^1,2. The fires released substantial amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere³. However, existing emission estimates based on fire inventories are uncertain⁴, and vary by up to a factor of four for this event. Here we constrain emission estimates with the help of satellite observations of carbon monoxide⁵, an analytical Bayesian inversion⁶ and observed ratios between emitted carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide⁷. We estimate emissions of carbon dioxide to be 715 teragrams (range 517-867) from November 2019 to January 2020. This is more than twice the estimate derived by five different fire inventories^8-12, and broadly consistent with estimates based on a bottom-up bootstrap analysis of this fire episode¹³. Although fires occur regularly in the savannas in northern Australia, the recent episodes were extremely large in scale and intensity, burning unusually large areas of eucalyptus forest in the southeast¹³. The fires were driven partly by climate change^14,15, making better-constrained emission estimates particularly important. This is because the build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide may become increasingly dependent on fire-driven climate-carbon feedbacks, as highlighted by this event¹⁶.

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Australian bush fires belched out immense quantity of carbon.
Mallapaty S. Mallapaty S. Nature. 2021 Sep;597(7877):459-460. doi: 10.1038/d41586-021-02509-3. Nature. 2021. PMID: 34526688 No abstract available.

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References

1. Bowman, D. M. et al. Wildfires: Australia needs national monitoring agency. Nature 584, 188–191 (2020). - DOI
1. Australian Government Annual Climate Statement 2019. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/annual/aus/2019/ (last accessed 23 July 2021) (2019).
1. Australian Government Technical Update 2020. Estimating greenhouse gas emissions from bushfires in Australia’s temperate forests: focus on 2019–20. https://www.industry.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/estimating-green... (last accessed 23 July 2021) (2020).
1. Pan, X. et al. Six global biomass burning emission datasets: intercomparison and application in one global aerosol model. Atmos. Chem. Phys. 20, 969–994 (2020). - DOI
1. Veefkind, J. P. et al. TROPOMI on the ESA Sentinel-5 precursor: a GMES mission for global observations of the atmospheric composition for climate, air quality and ozone layer applications. Remote Sens. Environ. 120, 70–83 (2012). - DOI

Vast CO2 release from Australian fires in 2019-2020 constrained by satellite - PubMed

Vast CO₂ release from Australian fires in 2019-2020 constrained by satellite

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