Remote sensing of global fire patterns, aerosol optical thickness, and carbon monoxide during April 1994

The current study examines global fire patterns, aerosol optical thickness (AOT) and carbon monoxide concentrations during April 9-19, 1994. Recently, global Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data at nadir ground spatial resolution of 1 km are made available through the NASANOAA Pathfinder project. These data from April 9-19, 1994 are used to map fires over the Earth. Daytime data with equatorial crossing time of 1340 Local Solar time (LST) from NOAA11 during the ascending orbit is used in this investigation. The main reason for choosing this time period is to compare the fire patterns observed by the astronauts aboard space shuttle SRL-1. During this time, global mid-tropospheric measurements of carbon monoxide were also made from the MAPS instrument onboard the same space shuttle. The elevated levels of CO in the troposphere are often attributed to biomass burning. This provides a unique opportunity to obtain fire distributions from independent methods and to compare fire activities with carbon monoxide concentrations measured by MAPS. One hundred thirty-nine global strips of AVHRR images were used to create this figure. More than 500 fires were detected in the belt between 10-20/spl deg/N which correspond to fire activities in Africa, Mexico, and the Indo-Burma region. These fire activities correspond to biomass burning due to agricultural practices. A comparison with the Olson ecosystem data base shows the majority of fires are in the savanna, grass shrub, and farm settlement categories. When compared to the Northern hemisphere, the Southern hemisphere has a fewer number of fires because April is the dry season in the Northern hemisphere.