Contribution of Major Wildfires to Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

© 2002 Eugene S. Takle

Major wildfires, such as occurred in Indonesia in 1997 can release copious amounts of CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere. Page et al (2002) have inventoried the CO2 that entered the atmosphere during this period by use of satellite and ground measurements. In this forested region, there are reservoirs of carbon not only in standing forests but also in the peat deposits (some reaching depths of 20 m) below the peat swamp forests. Studies have shown that the 1997 fires may have burned 25 to 85 cm of this peak as well as the biomass in trees (Schimel and Baker, 2002). Page et al (2002) estimate that 0.8 to 2.6 x 1015 g ( = 0.8-2.6 Pg or gigatons) of carbon were released during this event. This is equivalent to between 13% and 40% of the total CO2 emitted annually by human combustion of fossil fuels. The resulting increase of global atmospheric CO2 over the previous year is the largest annual increase since measurements were systematically recorded in 1957.


References

Page, S. E., F. Siegert, J. O. Rieley, H-D V. Boehm, A. Jaya, and S. Limin, 2002: The amount of carbon released from peat and forest fires in Indonesia during 1997. Nature, 420, 61-65.

Schimel, D., and D. Baker, 2002: The wildfire factor. Nature, 420, 29-31.