El Niño and health risks from landscape fire emissions in Southeast Asia.
Emissions from landscape fires affect both climate and air quality1. In this study, we combine satellite-derived fire estimates and atmospheric modeling to quantify health effects from fire emissions in Southeast Asia from 1997 to 2006. This region has large interannual variability in fire activity due to coupling between El Niño-induced droughts and anthropogenic land use change2,3. We show that during strong El Niño years, fires contribute up to 200 μg/m3and 50 ppb in annual average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone (O3) surface concentrations near fire sources, respectively. This corresponds to a fire contribution of 200 additional days per year that exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) 50 μg/m324-hour PM2.5interim target (IT-2)4and an estimated 10,800 (6,800-14,300) person (~2%) annual increase in regional adult cardiovascular mortality. Our results indicate that reducing regional deforestation and degradation fires would improve public health along with widely established benefits from reducing carbon emissions, preserving biodiversity, and maintaining ecosystem services.
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, NY, 10964, USA.
Miriam E
ME
Marlier
Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA.
Ruth S
RS
DeFries
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, New York, NY, 10025, USA.
Apostolos
A
Voulgarakis
Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10032, USA.
Patrick L
PL
Kinney
Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
James T
JT
Randerson
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, New York, NY, 10025, USA.
Drew T
DT
Shindell
Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
Yang
Y
Chen
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, New York, NY, 10025, USA.
Greg
G
Faluvegi