Copernicus: Forest fires in Australia, South America and Indonesia – fire season in the southern tropics

GFASv1.2 Global total radiative forcing of fires for October 2023.

Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Seasonal wildfires have been occurring in the tropics of the Southern Hemisphere since early August, and have seen variations in wildfire emissions between different countries.

Australia is one of the regions that has seen widespread bushfires and associated emissions, especially until October 2023. The number of fires and their intensity (fire radiative forcing or FRP) began to increase significantly in the first half of September and the highest levels were recorded in October with many fires In Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland, and especially in the last days of October in New South Wales. The total estimated carbon emissions from the fires for the period from August 1 to October 31 are the highest since 2012, at about 110 megatonnes. Meanwhile, large forest fires continue to be reported.

In the Amazon region and central parts of South America, despite widespread drought, fire emissions were generally lower than average between August and October. Brazil as a whole saw its lowest emissions levels since 2019. However, despite this, large forest fires occurred in parts of northern Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. In Bolivia, carbon emissions from forest fires totaled about 15 megatonnes in October, making it the highest October emissions in the past two decades.

Indonesia’s Sumatra and South Kalimantan regions also saw below-average forest fires between August and October. Indonesia as a whole, according to CAMS data, also followed the same trend. This is despite the El Niño phenomenon and the positive phase of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD). Which led to an increase in fire emissions on the maritime continent compared to the past three years. Both El Niño and IOD typically lead to drier conditions across the region, which are associated with higher wildfire risks. For example, the El Niño years of 2006 and 2015 and the positive IOD of 2019 were also years with higher emissions due to forest fires in Indonesia.

Mark Barrington, chief scientist at CAMS, comments: “This year’s El Niño forecast has given us an additional incentive to monitor our emissions around the southern tropics since early August. We have seen an increase in emissions from forest fires in Indonesia and the Amazon compared to recent years.” To the extreme levels of previous El Niño years, it has nonetheless produced large amounts of smoke and deteriorated air quality. “The monitoring work we do at CAMS is critical to understanding the potential atmospheric impacts of fire emissions.”

The Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS), implemented by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts on behalf of the European Commission with funding from the European Union, provides up-to-date information on the location, intensity and emissions of forest fires around the world. The world, including tracking the movement of smoke and its impact on the composition of the atmosphere.

More information about forest fires in the southern tropics here.

CAMS global fire monitoring page Existing here.

Read more about fire monitoring: Questions and answers about the CAMS Wildfire service.

Notes to editors:

About Copernicus and ECMWF

Copernicus is part of the European Union’s space programme, which is funded by the European Union and is its main Earth observation programme. The company operates through six thematic services: atmospheric, marine, terrestrial, climate change, security and emergencies. It provides freely available data and operational services that provide users with reliable and up-to-date information about our planet and its environment. The program is coordinated and managed by the European Commission and implemented in partnership with Member States, the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). European Union agencies, Mercator Ocean and others.

ECMWF operates two services from the European Union’s Copernicus Earth Observation Programme: the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S). They also contribute to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS), which is implemented by the European Union’s Joint Research Council (JRC). The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) is an independent intergovernmental organization supported by 35 countries. It is a research institute and 24/7 operational service that produces and disseminates numerical weather forecasts to its member countries. These data are fully available to national meteorological services in Member States. The supercomputer facility (and associated data archive) at ECMWF is one of the largest of its kind in Europe and member states can use 25 percent of its capacity for their own purposes..

ECMWF has expanded the number of sites where it operates. In addition to the headquarters in the United Kingdom and the computing center in Italy, new offices focusing on activities carried out in partnership with the European Union, such as Copernicus, will be based in Bonn, Germany.

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