The carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions released from biomass burning significantly affect the temporal variations of atmospheric CO 2  concentrations. Based on a long-term (July 2009–June 2015) retrieved data sets by the greenhouse gases observing satellite (GOSAT), the seasonal cycle and interannual variations of column-averaged volume mixing ratios of atmospheric carbon dioxide (XCO 2 ) in four fire affected continental regions were analyzed. The results showed that Northern Africa (NA) had the largest seasonal variations after removing its regional trend of XCO 2  with peak-to-peak amplitude of 6.2 ppm within the year, higher than central South America (CSA) (2.4 ppm), Southern Africa (SA) (3.8 ppm), and Australia (1.7 ppm). The detrended regional XCO 2  (   $\triangle $   XCO 2 ) was found to be positively correlated with the fire CO 2  emissions during the fire activity period but with different seasonal variabilities. NA recorded the largest change of seasonal variations of    $\triangle $   XCO 2  with a total of 12.8 ppm during fire seasons, higher than CSA, SA, and Australia with 5.4, 6.7, and 2.2 ppm, respectively. During the fire episode, the positive    $\triangle $   XCO 2  was noticed during June–November in CSA, December to next June in NA, and May–November in SA. The Pearson correlation coefficients between the variations of    $\triangle $   XCO 2  and fire CO 2  emissions achieved the best correlations in SA (   $R = 0.77$    and    $p   ). This letter revealed that fire CO 2  emissions and GOSAT XCO 2  presented consistent seasonal variations.
['Yusheng Shi', 'Tsuneo Matsunaga', 'Hibiki Noda']
Interpreting Temporal Changes of Atmospheric CO 2 Over Fire Affected Regions Based on GOSAT Observations