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Climate, Ecology, War & More: Dr. Glen Barry BigEarthData.ai
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Unmasking the haze's toxic cocktail ->The Straits Times | More on "Indonesia's haze and climate impact" at BigEarthData.ai | #Toxic

straitstimes.comUnmasking the haze's toxic cocktailSmoke haze from Indonesia has blanketed the region since August, causing weeks of misery, from respiratory illnesses to curtailed outdoor activity and flight disruptions. The vast cloud of haze is much more than just particulate matter from forest and land fires. It also includes a toxic mix of polluting gases, including carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2), which together fuel climate change. Deputy foreign editor David Fogarty and infographics journalist Lim Yong take a deeper look. 1. Carbon monoxide. When viewed from space, it is easy to see the vast plumes of CO that stretch across all of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, northern Australia and towards India. It was a completely different picture a year ago, when there was no plume because there were no major fires. Carbon monoxide replaces oxygen in the bloodstream, starving the brain, heart and tissues of the air they need to function, according to Harvard Health. In the atmosphere, the compound can exacerbate global warming. CO does this by slowing the destruction of methane and other short-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, increasing their lifetimes in the air. Methane is an even more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2 and forest fires also produce large amounts...

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