Climate change: is Southeast Asia up to the challenge?: the roles of climate variability and climate change on smoke haze occurrences in Southeast Asia region

This paper discusses the smoke-haze episodes in the Southeast Asia region and how their occurrence can be related to climate variability and future climate change in the region. The haze episode over this region has been an almost yearly occurrence but becomes severe during the prolonged dry period associated with the El Niño phenomenon. The longest and most severe case was the episode of September to November 1997 that occurred in conjunction with the extreme 1997/98 El Niño. This event resulted in more than US$4 billion in economic losses to the region and a colossal 93% of the cost was incurred in Indonesia.