Amazon wildfire emissions up to three times higher than estimated
Wildfires that swept across the Amazon rainforest in 2024 produced emissions up to three times higher than previous estimates, according to new research funded by the European Space Agency using data from the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite. The findings, published on March 25, 2026, indicate that traditional fire emission models significantly underestimated the scale of atmospheric pollution generated during one of the region’s most severe wildfire seasons in more than two decades. The study analysed carbon monoxide emissions across large areas of South America, revealing substantially higher atmospheric concentrations linked to widespread fires across the Amazon basin.
Researchers relied on Sentinel-5P’s TROPOMI instrument, which measures trace gases in the atmosphere, to detect elevated carbon monoxide levels during the August and September 2024 fire season. The satellite observations indicated that commonly used bottom-up fire emission models struggled to capture emissions from smouldering understory fires, persistent cloud cover and complex burn patterns across dense rainforest regions. As a result, total emissions from the fires may have been between 1.5 and three times higher than earlier estimates, highlighting limitations in conventional monitoring approaches that depend on burned area and fire radiative power data. The findings were presented in a study published in Geophysical Research Letters, with satellite data revealing extensive pollution plumes spreading across central South America.
The results underscore the growing role of space-based atmospheric monitoring in refining global climate and carbon cycle models. Improved emission estimates from Sentinel-5P data could influence assessments of the Amazon’s role as a carbon sink and inform climate policy and environmental monitoring efforts. The research also demonstrates how satellite observations can capture emissions that ground-based or traditional modelling methods may miss, particularly in regions with persistent cloud cover and complex fire behaviour. These findings highlight the importance of satellite-derived atmospheric measurements for understanding wildfire impacts and improving future climate projections.
