Indonesian forest fires caused largest increase in atmospheric CO2 since measurements began

Last year's extensive forest fires in Southeast Asia, most notably Indonesia, were responsible for the highest levels of atmospheric CO2 emissions ever measured, according to research published today from King's College London. Writing in Nature Scientific Reports , Professor Martin Wooster from King's and the NERC National Centre for Earth Observation, together with colleagues from institutions across Europe and Indonesia, said that last year's record growth in CO2 was caused by the impacts of El Nino and the longterm growth in CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels. Much of Indonesia was naturally covered by forests, and some grew on a thick layer of moist, carbon-rich peatland storing more than 55 billion tonnes of carbon, far more carbon than is stored in their above ground vegetation. However, decades of forest clearance and the drying out of the normally moist peatlands for agriculture using extensive networks of drainage canals has made extensive parts of the Indonesian landscape much more flammable than before. Professor Wooster, explained 'We saw the strongest growth in the global atmospheric concentration of CO2 with an increase of more than 40% higher than the last decade's average annual atmospheric CO2 global growth rate. Indonesia is covered large areas of peatland and given that fire is commonly used to manage the land, every year some extend into the carbon rich peatlands, parts of which are now dry enough to burn. Major reductions in rainfall associated with the 2015 El Niño led to a much drier situation, and fires grew far larger than normal, affecting both agricultural land, forest and peatland.