In the last decade, Asian farmers have cleared tens of thousands
of square miles of forests to accommodate the world’s growing
demand for palm oil, an increasingly popular food ingredient,
reports Science Daily. Ancient peatlands have been drained and
lush tropical forests have been cut down. As a result, the
landscape of equatorial Asia now lies vulnerable to fires, which
are growing more frequent and having a serious impact on the air
as well as the land. A team of NASA-sponsored researchers have
used satellites to make the first series of estimates of carbon
dioxide (CO2) emitted from these fires — both wildfires and
fires started by people — in Malaysia, Indonesia, Borneo, and
Papua New Guinea. They are now working to understand how climate
influences the spread and intensity of the fires. Using data
from a carbon-detecting NASA satellite and computer models, the
researchers found that seasonal fires from 2000 to 2006 doubled
the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) released from the Earth to
the atmosphere abo