Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 2014, 4, 563-568 Published Online October 2014 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/acs http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/acs.2014.44051 How to cite this paper: de Souza, A., Aristones, F., Silva, G.B.M., Fernandes, W.A. and Braga, C. (2014) Temporal Variation of the Concentration of Carbon Monoxide in the Center West of Brazil. Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, 4, 563-568. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/acs.2014.44051 Temporal Variation of the Concentration of Carbon Monoxide in the Center West of Brazil Amaury de Souza 1 , Flavio Aristones 1 , Gustavo Becker Modesto Silva 1 , Widinei Alves Fernandes 1 , Catia Braga 2 1 Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, Institute of Physics, Campo Grande, MS, Brazil 2 CEMTEC—Monitoring Center of Weather, Campo Grande, MS, Brazil Email: amaury.de@uol.com.br Received 29 June 2014; revised 30 July 2014; accepted 29 August 2014 Copyright © 2014 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract South Mato Grosso has been developing very rapidly in recent decades, and it is clearly leaving behind the status of being solely an agricultural region to become an important state in the areas of commerce and industry. Nevertheless, it is still possible to observe the harmful effects of at- mospheric pollution due to biomass burning activities, even if those actions are being systemati- cally reduced in the state throughout the past several years. This kind of pollution persists not only due to local activities but also due to the pollution of other states and even other border countries. Satellite remote sensing has proven to be an important tool of environmental control vis-à-vis the ease of data acquisition, accuracy and wide temporal range. A study has been con- ducted of spatial and temporal concentration of carbon monoxide (CO) in the state of South Mato Grosso from 2001 through 2012 using the MOPITT sensor onboard the TERRA satellite. The car- bon monoxide comes principally from the incomplete combustion of vehicles engines and biomass burnings. A direct correlation of the CO concentration in the state of South Mato Grosso is ob- served precisely during the months of drought (August to October), for which the number of fire outbreaks is the highest of the year. Keywords Carbon Monoxide, MOPITT, Biomass Burning 1. Introduction Earth is a gigantic sphere covered by water, rocks and soil that evolved by a huge mixing of gases. Such a cover