Tropospheric carbon monoxide and hydrogen measurements over Kalimantan in Indonesia and northern Australia during October, 1997

Abstract

During the PACE-5 campaign over Australia and Indonesia in October 1997, we used an aircraft to measure carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2). Latitudinal distributions of CO and H2 clearly showed a large increase from northern Australia to Kalimantan in Indonesia. Elevated CO levels over northern Australia were observed only in the smoke plumes of savanna fires. A thick smoke haze from forest fires over Kalimantan contained very high CO mixing ratios of 3 to 9 ppm. These enhanced CO mixing ratios correlated well with increased concentrations of H2, nitrogen oxides (NOx), and aerosols. Emission ratios from biomass burning in Kalimantan ranged 0.06 0.1 for H2/CO (ppb/ppb), 0.0002 to 0.0005 for NOx/CO (ppb/ppb), and 0.43 to 1.0 for number of aerosols/CO (cm-3/ppb). These values were much lower than emission ratios in northern Australia. This difference suggests that the biomass burning in Indonesia was intense and that, due to a strong El Niño event, an unique composition of trace gases was formed in the smoke haze. Copyright 1999 by the American Geophysical Union.