Fires in Southeast Asia

Fires continue to burn throughout southeast Asia. The Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrumentaboard NASA’s Terra satellite has been monitoring the impact of these intense local pollution sources on regional airquality through measurements of carbon monoxide in the lower atmosphere. Carbon monoxide is a good tracer ofpollution since it is produced as a by-product of the combustion associated with the wildfires and agricultural fires that arewidespread throughout the region at this time of year. This false-color image shows carbon monoxide plumes at analtitude of roughly 3 km (700 millibars) in the atmosphere over southeast Asia. This image represents a composite of datacollected from February 27-March 4, 2003. The gray areas show where no data were collected, either due to persistentcloud cover or gaps between viewing swaths.

References & Resources

Image courtesy the NCAR and University of Toronto MOPITT Teams

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March 4, 2003

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