Detecting Nighttime Fire Combustion Phase from Suomi NPP VIIRS: First Global Results
Abstract
An accurate estimation of biomass burning emissions is limited by the lack of knowledge of fire burning phase (smoldering/flaming). Here, we present a hybrid usage of VIIRS day-and-night visible band and infrared band to quantify the visible energy fraction (VEF) as an indicator of fire burning phase; VEF is introduced and is calculated as the ratio of visible light power (VLP) and FRP for each fire pixel retrieved from VIIRS 750 m active fire product. A global distribution of VEF values, and thereby the fire phase, is quantitatively obtained, showing mostly smoldering wildfires such as peatland fires (with smaller VEF values) in Indonesia, flaming wildfires (with larger VEF values) over grasslands and savannahs in sub-Sahel region, and gas fares with largest VEF values in the Middle East. We also illustrate the advantages of using VEF to describe the life cycle of Camp fire in 2018 - the most devasting fire in the history of California. Finally, a discussion of validating VEF and using VEF to improve the estimate of fire combustion efficiency at VIIRS pixel level are provided.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.A13D..03W
- Keywords:
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- 0305 Aerosols and particles;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0322 Constituent sources and sinks;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0345 Pollution: urban and regional;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE;
- 0365 Troposphere: composition and chemistry;
- ATMOSPHERIC COMPOSITION AND STRUCTURE