Relating fire radiative power (FRP) measurements from space to true fire and emission characteristics
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) - Internship for Undergraduates and Graduate Students
Large fires occur frequently in various vegetated parts of the globe, releasing tremendous radiative heat energy and smoke, which comprise aerosols (or particulate matter, PM) and trace gases that adversely affect human health, weather, and climate. Fire radiative energy (FRE) release rates (AKA fire radiative power, FRP) are routinely measured by sophisticated satellite-borne sensors, such as the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. FRP data have been used to distinguish different fire strengths and to estimate biomass consumption, and have been found to be strongly correlated with plume injection heights and aerosol PM emission rates in various regions of the world. A similar relationship was obtained in the laboratory between FRE and PM emission using similar measurements of small-scale fires. The FRP to PM emission rate correlation has enabled the derivation of smoke emission coefficients (Ce), such that whenever FRP is measured, the corresponding PM emission rate is instantly evaluated; thereby offering great potential for facilitating the quantitative estimation of smoke emissions for various important applications, including air-quality forecasting and climate studies. A series of prescribed fires involving a variety of ground-based and airborne measurements of fire and smoke characteristics and associated meteorology are being conducted in coordination with relevant satellite overpasses. The objective of this project is to quantitatively analyze the relationships between satellite measurements of FRP the true fire and smoke characteristics based on sub-orbital measurements such as fuel density and properties, sub-pixel fire size and temperature, flaming and smoldering fractions, plume injection and transport, smoke constituents, fire weather and fire-associated mesoscale and microscale meteorology.
