El Nino, Forest Fire Fuel Record Air Pollution
Scientists from Harvard University have determined that the most intense global pollution from fires occurred during droughts caused by El Nino.
Using satellite data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the scientists quantified the amount of smoke pollution from biomass burning over 20 years.
Biomass burning is the combustion of both living and dead vegetation and includes fires generated both by lightning and human activity. Humans are responsible for about 90 percent of biomass burning.
“It is important to study biomass burning, because those fires produce as much pollution as use of fossil fuels,” said Jennifer Logan, one of the Harvard researchers. “Most of the pollution from fires is produced in the tropics, while pollution from fossil fuel use occurs in North America, Europe and Asia.”
Logan and her colleagues found the most intense fires took place in 1997-1998 in association with the strongest El Nino event of the 20th century.
During this El Nino, Indonesia, Mexico, and Central America experienced extreme droughts, and severe forest fires.
“We found that fires typically produce the most pollution in Southeast Asia in March, in northern Africa in January and February, and in southern Africa and Brazil in August and September,” Logan said.
The scientists concluded biomass burning in this timeframe was greater than in any other period between 1979 and 2000.
The amount of carbon monoxide emitted in 1997 and 1998 was about 30 percent higher than the amount emitted from worldwide motor vehicle and fossil fuel combustion.
Provided by theEnvironmental News Service.
