Satellite Monitoring of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Biomass Burning

Biomass burning releases large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs), such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), into the atmosphere. A quantitative estimate of emissions from biomass burning is vital to understand the impacts of fires on climate, weather, environment and public health. Wildfires are projected to increase in frequency, severity, and extent in a warming and drying climate, contributing to the emissions of GHGs. The estimation of spatially and temporally resolved GHG emissions from the biomass burning sector provides critical information in developing measurement-informed GHG inventories and assessing mitigation strategies and policy decision making. For example, mitigating emissions of CH4 is an attractive option to restrict the pace of global warming since it is one of the major climate drivers but has a relatively short atmospheric lifetime. A 22-year NOAA satellite-based GHG emissions record, derived from fire radiative power observations, is being explored to estimate the long-term temporal variations and geographic distributions of GHGs. Analysis shows that globally, a few megatonnes of CH4 and a few hundred megatonnes of CO2 are released annually on average from biomass burning. It is important to capture this source of GHG emissions in atmospheric models, such as NOAA’s CarbonTracker, to monitor CO2 uptake and release at the Earth’s surface over time. We will present our analysis of global fire activity over the last two decades, estimates of the contributions of fires to GHG budgets, and plans to ingest these data into CarbonTracker. In addition, we will frame the data in the context of policies towards net zero emissions.