Carbon monoxide emission differences over central South America
These images show the relative differences between data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite and four carbon monoxide emissions models, seen over the South American continent in September 2024. The dark red areas show where the four models listed below estimated a lower level of carbon monoxide compared to data from Sentinel-5P.
The four emissions models used in comparison with Sentinel-5P data are (clockwise from top left)
- the operational Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS);
- Global Fire Atlas data from the Sense4Fire project (GFA-S4F);
- optimised GFA data (GFA-OPT); and
- the Technical University of Dresden Sense4Fire satellite data‐model fusion approach for fuel loads, fuel moisture, fuel consumption and fire emissions (TUD‐S4F).
Carbon monoxide is easier for satellites to detect than carbon dioxide, making it a useful proxy for estimating wildfire emissions.
The datasets in the images were presented in a paper in Geophysical Research Letters. The results of the study suggest that current scientific methods significantly underestimate carbon emissions, with actual carbon output potentially between 1.5 and three times higher.
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