• Credit:

  NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided courtesy of the NCAR and University of Toronto MOPITT Teams

Fires burning across the island of Sumatra produced a significant amount of pollution in February 2005. Because one of the by-products of combustion is carbon monoxide, the gas is a good tracer of fire-induced pollution. In February, enhanced levels of carbon monoxide hung over Sumatra and Malaysia. This false-color image shows the concentrations of carbon monoxide at an altitude of roughly 3 km (700 millibars) in the atmosphere. The data were taken by the Measurements Of Pollution In The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument aboard NASA’s Terra satellite from February 13 to February 23, 2005. The reds in this image show the highest concentrations of carbon monoxide and blues show the lowest concentrations. The gray shaded areas show where no data were collected due to persistent cloud cover.

Images & Animations

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• Database Updated: May 19, 2013