Papua New Guinea's Fires Have Already Set a Carbon Record for This Point in the Year
Unusually dry weather, a byproduct of El Niño shifting rainfall patterns, has primed ecosystems across New Guinea to burn. According to the Global Fire Emissions Database, fires in Papua New Guinea, on the eastern half of the island, had released nearly 32 megatons of carbon by 19 October — more than any other year on record at that point in the year.
Where the smoke ends up is its own problem. Robert Field, an associate research scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University, notes that smoke drifting into the convection of nearby thunderstorms can be washed out or lofted into the upper troposphere, but a lot of it stays near the surface, causing air quality problems.
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A carbon record is a strange instrument for this. The harm Field describes lands on lungs: a lot of that smoke never gets lofted away, it just sits where people breathe.
The ranking still shifts depending on which half of the island you mean. On the Indonesian side — West New Guinea or Indonesian Papua — emissions exceeded 35 megatons, the third highest after 2015 and 1997, both El Niño years with severe fires. A record headline for one jurisdiction is a bronze medal for the other.