Carbon monoxide emissions over central South America, September 2024

These images show a comparison of (left) fire emission estimates from the operational Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) and (right) data from the the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite. The data was captured over parts of Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay in September 2024.

GFAS assimilates satellite data on fire radiative power to produce daily estimates of wildfire and biomass burning emissions.

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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