Indonesia study disputes UN data on peat fire emissions
Indonesia study disputes UN data on peat fire emissions
19 July 2016
published by http://www.scidev.net
Indonesia / global [JAKARTA] A joint research of Indonesian and US scientists shows that peat fires in Central Kalimantan in Indonesia released less carbon dioxide than projected by UN climate experts but discharged more potentially hazardous gases.
The research, led by scientists from the Bogor Agricultural University, Palangka Raya University, Central Kalimantan and Kapuas administrations, Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, and the South Dakota State University and Montana University, was funded by NASA after massive peat fires struck the province in 2015.
Influenced by a strong El Niño, the peat fires deteriorated air quality to ten times the very dangerous threshold.
According to the research study published in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics journal, the carbon dioxide released was eight per cent less than the emission factor data by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which took samples of peat in Sumatra island and burned it in lab unlike the new study which took actual burned peats from the field. In 2003, scientists didnt yet understand that the two sampling methods would make a difference. Methane release was also 55 per cent less than the IPCC emission factor data.
The results, if compared with IPCC data, showed a significant gap so we are hoping that [the IPCC data] can be considered to be corrected, says Bambang Hero Saharjo, a co-author of the study and lead scientist at Bogor Agricultural University.
Saharjo says they used a device called the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy that is designed to collect smoke samples and identify up to 90 gases straight from the burned location.
We collected smoke samples in Pulang Pisau district in Central Kalimantan. It was the same site President Jokowi visited to survey canal blockings, he says. The spectroscopy could immediately read and identify the gases in real time. We also collected soil samples from the burned location.
With the current study, Indonesias carbon emissions would be 19 per cent less than previously stated, he says, adding it would be crucial to correct the countrys status as the worlds third largest carbon emitter because of forest and peat fires.
The study also picked up other gases related to ozone depletion as well as health risks, which are mostly unaccounted for when measuring greenhouse gas emissions. These major gas-phase air toxics and carcinogens include hydrogen, cyanide, formaldehyde, acrolein, acetamide, BTEX, crotonaldehyde and 1,3-butadiene.
These gases are as important as methane and carbon dioxide, says Saharjo. Because if the air is polluted and contaminated, they can be harmful to people, especially pregnant women.
