Use and ground validation of MISR satellite data to constrain injection heights of emissions from forest fires in the northwestern United States
Abstract
Emissions from forest fires can have a significant effect on the concentration of atmospheric pollutants downwind of the fires. In light of the increased frequency and severity of forest fires as a consequence global climate change, being able to accurately model the transport of smoke from these fires, from the regional to the global scale, is especially important. However, modeling the vertical transport of smoke from forest fires has proved difficult. In order to assess the accuracy of plume rise models, correlative data are needed. For atmospheric models with coarse resolution in which fires are treated as sub-grid scale events, semi-empirical methods of calculating the injection heights of emissions are often necessary. Here, we use observed smoke plume heights from the NASA MISR (Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer) satellite instrument to assess the accuracy of the predicted injection heights of forest fires emissions used in the AIRPACT regional forecast system for the northwestern United States. These are modeled using Forest Service fire incidence reports and a Briggs type plume model. The MISR heights are retrieved using the MISR Interactive Explorer (MINX). There is no systematic program to verify plume heights from MISR at present. We also present a program, to be implemented during the fire season of 2009, to verify plume heights from the MISR instrument using field portable video cameras with position, time and angular information encoded on the video data stream.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFM.B31C0302L
- Keywords:
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- 0315 Biosphere/atmosphere interactions (0426;
- 1610);
- 0322 Constituent sources and sinks;
- 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- 0368 Troposphere: constituent transport and chemistry;
- 0466 Modeling