It turned out that the tropical area of Africa was emitting carbon dioxide for 200 million cars


by

Jonathan Larson

Because plants absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide, the African continent with its rich rainforest seems to be the world's leading source of carbon dioxide absorption . However, observations using Japanese satellites have revealed that rather large amounts of carbon dioxide are being released on the African continent.

Africa's tropical land emitted more CO2 than the US in 2016, satellite data shows | Carbon Brief
https://www.carbonbrief.org/africas-tropical-land-emitted-more-co2-than-the-us-in-2016-satellite-data-shows

Satellite study reveals that area emits one billion tonnes of carbon
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-satellite-reveals-area-emits-billion.html

Africa's tropical land emitted more CO2 than the US in 2016, satellite data shows | Carbon Brief
https://www.carbonbrief.org/africas-tropical-land-emitted-more-co2-than-the-us-in-2016-satellite-data-shows

The research team of Paul Palmer and others who are studying earth sciences at the University of Edinburgh is based on data collected by Japan's Greenhouse Gas Observation Technology Satellite IBUKI (GOSAT) and NASA's on-orbit carbon observation satellite OCO-2. In addition, we examined which part of the earth absorbs or releases carbon dioxide.

The map below shows the color of carbon dioxide emissions in 2015 and 2016. The closer the color is to dark blue, the more carbon dioxide is absorbed. Conversely, the closer the color is to bright yellow, the more carbon dioxide is released. Many of South America and northern Australia, which have tropical rainforests in the Amazon basin, are dark blue and can be seen absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide.



In Africa, the southern region centering on the

Congo Basin is blue, but in western Africa and regions with Ethiopia are yellow, you can see that a significant amount of carbon dioxide is being released.



When the team calculated the carbon dioxide emissions in this region, it was found that carbon dioxide emissions in the tropical region of North Africa can be between 1 and 1.5 billion tons per year. This is said to be equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted by 200 million cars per year.

The research team speculates that the reason why so much carbon dioxide was released in Africa is because of human land use. In areas where a large amount of carbon dioxide was released, there was once rich nature, but most of it was lost due to deforestation for agriculture. As a result, the soil in this area deteriorated, and it is highly likely that the carbon dioxide stored in the soil over a long period of time was released into the atmosphere at once.


by geralt

There is also the impact of massive climate change. Oliver Phillips, a professor of tropical ecology at the University of Leeds, said, “There was a large El Niño event in the region from 2015 to 2016, and the temperature in the tropical region was record high. Pointed out. ' He stated that the rise in temperature due to extreme weather accelerated the destruction of ecosystems and the release of carbon dioxide.

Mr. Palmer said, “This research has revealed a new source of carbon dioxide emissions that has not been known so far,” and said that global warming countermeasures such as the Paris Agreement will be further reviewed. Showed.

in Science, Posted by log1l_ks