Biomass burning causes 2.59b tons of carbon emission per year

The Aerospace Information Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has quantified the carbon emissions caused by biomass burning worldwide since 2020 and established a database. Recently, the research findings were published online in the top-tier journal Earth System Science Data.

The research results show that from 2020 to 2022, the carbon emissions from the biomass burning or the global vegetation fires amounted to as high as 2.59 billion tons per year.

Fires such as forest fires, grassland fires, and crop residue burning are important sources of global carbon emissions, with grassland fires leading, according to the research.

Shi Yusheng, the corresponding author of the paper and associate researcher at the Aerospace Information Research Institute, said that the occurrence of carbon emissions from fires is random, with many points and difficult to monitor.

"Accurately quantifying carbon emissions from biomass burning is the basis for understanding the carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems and is also a prerequisite for clarifying global and regional carbon budgets," he said.