Journal article
Detecting nighttime fire combustion phase by hybrid application of visible and infrared radiation from Suomi NPP VIIRS
Remote sensing of environment, Vol.237, p.111466
02/2020
DOI: 10.1016/j.rse.2019.111466
Abstract
An accurate estimation of biomass burning emissions is partially limited by the lack of knowledge of fire burning phase (smoldering vs. flaming). In recent years, several fire detection products have been developed to provide information of fire radiative power (FRP), location, size, and temperature of fire pixels, but no information regarding fire burning phase is retrieved. The Day-Night band (DNB) aboard Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is sensitive to visible light from flaming fires in nighttime scenes. In contrast, VIIRS 4 μm moderate resolution band #13 (M13), though capable of detecting fires at all phases, has no direct sensitivity for discerning fire phase. However, the hybrid usage of VIIRS DNB and M-bands data is hampered by their different scanning technology and spatial resolution. In this study, we present a novel method to rapidly and accurately resample DNB pixel radiances to the footprint of M-band pixels, accounting for onboard detector aggregation schemes and bowtie effect removals. The visible energy fraction (VEF) is subsequently introduced as an indicator of fire burning phase. VEF is calculated as the ratio of visible light power (VLP) to FRP for each fire pixel retrieved from the VIIRS 750 m active fire product. A global distribution of VEF values is quantitatively obtained, showing smaller VEF values in regions with mostly smoldering wildfires, such as peatland fires in Indonesia, larger VEF values in regions with flaming wildfires over grasslands and savannas in the sub-Sahelian region, and the largest VEF values associated with gas flaring in the Middle East. Mean VEF for different land cover types or regions is highly correlated with modified combustion efficiency (MCE). These results, together with a case study of the 2018 California Camp Fire, show that the VEF has the potential to be an indicator of fire combustion phase for each fire pixel, appropriate for estimating emission factors at the satellite pixel level.
•Novel approach to resample VIIRS′ Day-Night-Band radiances to its M-band footprint.•Visible energy fraction (VEF) concept is mathematically defined for nighttime fires.•VEF is more effective than fire radiative power to describe fire phase.•VEF is a strong indicator of the modified combustion efficiency (MCE) of fires.•VEF is computed globally and captures MCE global variation for different biomes.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Detecting nighttime fire combustion phase by hybrid application of visible and infrared radiation from Suomi NPP VIIRS
- Creators
- Jun Wang - Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USASepehr Roudini - Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USAEdward J Hyer - Marine Meteorology Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, CA 93943, USAXiaoguang Xu - Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USAMeng Zhou - Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, and Iowa Technology Institute, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USALorena Castro Garcia - Department of Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 52242, USAJeffrey S Reid - Marine Meteorology Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, CA 93943, USADavid A Peterson - Marine Meteorology Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Monterey, CA 93943, USAArlindo M da Silva - Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Remote sensing of environment, Vol.237, p.111466
- Publisher
- Elsevier Inc
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.rse.2019.111466
- ISSN
- 0034-4257
- eISSN
- 1879-0704
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000006, name: Office of Naval Research; DOI: 10.13039/100000104, name: National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 02/2020
- Academic Unit
- Chemical and Biochemical Engineering; Physics and Astronomy; Iowa Technology Institute; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Record Identifier
- 9984066115202771
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