INDONESIA FIRES REVISITING, AGAIN (Yet Again!)
Fires Again, Again, Again, …
Once again the media is full of smoke, children wearing masks, suffering orang-utans, burnt land, people on firefighting trucks and planes and calls for action. The firefighting, trucks and planes, have limitations on their effectiveness (or indeed usefulness) in responding to fires, particularly peat fires. Fighting these fires is not the solution to the problem, it is a gesture at the symptom of smoke blanketing the region from fires in Indonesia.
Episodes of fire and drought are not new in Indonesia, with major events occurring in 1982/83, which was the first Indonesian dry season in which fires created an international profile, then 1987, 1991, 1997/98 and into the 2000s. In 2015 the fires are back again. The El Nino was forecast and recognised early as being potentially among the strongest on record. There is no basis for being surprised. There is no reason for the same firefighting responses to be recycled to the little or no effect they have had over the 32 years since 1983.
Download the full report
Indonesia on track to have the worst fire season since 1997
by staff from the International Research Institute for Climate and Society and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Much of western Indonesia is currently burning, producing enormous amounts of smoke-haze, and disrupting large parts of society in the region. Scientists are suggesting that this is not ‘normal’ seasonal burning and could end up ranking among the worst on record. This is one of the first severe impacts of the strong El Niño that has been developing over the last year.
“The El Niño is now in full swing and is one of the largest El Niño events of the last 50 years,” says Tony Barnston, who is the chief forecaster at Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society.
Read full article at: https://medium.com/@climatesociety/indonesia-on-track-to-have-the-worst-fire-season-since-1997-49b55e19be5f
Rapid burned area assessment in Indonesia using Sentinel-1 data
Vast disastrous forest and peat fires are currently raging across Sumatra and Borneo putting Indonesia on track to be one of the world’s largest carbon emitters this year (Global Emission Fire Database )...
Download the full report
Detection of forest and peat fires using the German TET-1 satellite
Vast and disastrous forest and peat fires are currently raging across Sumatra and Borneo putting Indonesia on track to be one of the world’s largest carbon emitters this year ﴾Global Emission Fire Database 1 ). Peat fires burn smoldering and produce thick haze which drifts as far as to neighboring countries Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand (Figure 1,2)...
Download the full report
