Estimation of fire-induced carbon emissions from Equatorial Asia in 2015 using in situ aircraft and ship observations

Niwa, Yosuke; Sawa, Yousuke; Nara, Hideki; Machida, Toshinobu; Matsueda, Hidekazu; Umezawa, Taku; Ito, Akihiko; Nakaoka, Shin-Ichiro; Tanimoto, Hiroshi; Tohjima, Yasunori

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9455-2021

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9455-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-9455-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 21, issue 12

Research article

|

23 Jun 2021

Research article |

| 23 Jun 2021

Estimation of fire-induced carbon emissions from Equatorial Asia in 2015 using in situ aircraft and ship observations

Yosuke Niwa, Yousuke Sawa, Hideki Nara, Toshinobu Machida, Hidekazu Matsueda, Taku Umezawa, Akihiko Ito, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Hiroshi Tanimoto, and Yasunori Tohjima

Data sets

Atmospheric CO2 mole fraction data of CONTRAIL-CME Toshinobu Machida, Kentaro Ishijima, Yosuke Niwa, Kazuhiro Tsuboi, Yousuke Sawa, and Hidekazu Matsueda https://doi.org/10.17595/20180208.001

Monitoring of Greenhouse Gases over the Pacific Ocean Using Regular Cargo Ships Global Environmental Database (GED) http://db.cger.nies.go.jp/portal/geds/atmosphericAndOceanicMonitoring?lang=eng

Short summary

Fires in Equatorial Asia release a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Extensively using high-precision atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) data from a commercial aircraft observation project, we estimated fire carbon emissions in Equatorial Asia induced by the big El Niño event in 2015. Additional shipboard measurement data elucidated the validity of the analysis and the best estimate indicated 273 Tg C for fire emissions during September–October 2015.