EUMETSAT Met. Sat. Conf. 2006: Kaiser et al., Biomass Burning Emissions 1

Observation Requirements for Global Biomass Burning Emission Monitoring

J.W. Kaiser 1, M.G. Schultz 2, J.−M. Gregoire 3, C. Textor 4 , E. Bartholomé 3, M. Leroy 5 , R. Engelen 1, A. Hollingsworth 1

1 ECMWF, Reading, UK2 FZ Jülich, Jülich, Germany3 JRC, Ispra, Italy4 CNRS, Paris, France5 Medias-France, Toulouse, France

EUMETSAT Met. Sat. Conf. 2006: Kaiser et al., Biomass Burning Emissions 2

OUTLINE

IntroductionAtmosphere MonitoringLand MonitoringObservation SystemSummary

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INTRODUCTION: Biomass Burning (BB) in GMES

GMES aims at designing and establishing a European capacity for the provision and use of operational services for Global Monitoring of Environment and Security.

The FP6 IP GEMS develops the atmosphere monitoring system for GMES.

The FP6 IP GEOLAND develops the land monitoring system for GMES.

Biomass Burning (BB) is a major interface between both the atmosphere and land monitoring systems.

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INTRODUCTION: Biomass Burning (BB) Emissions …

AIR QUALITY: … can dominate regional air quality in “severe air pollution” events … can elevate background of atmospheric pollutant after long range

transport [Stohl et al. 2001, Forster et al. 2001, Andreae et al. 2001]

POLLUTION CONTROL: … significantly contributes to global budgets of several gases

Kyoto, CLRTAP, …

WEATHER: (absorbing aerosols) … influences the radiative energy budget [Konzelmann et al., JGR 1996] … provides cloud condensation nuclei [Andreae et al., Science 2004] Heat release accelerates deep convection. [Damoah et al., ACP 2006]

REMOTE SENSING: … affects essential a priori information for remote sensing (AOD, profiles)

CHALLENGE: … are highly variable on all time scales from hours to decades

NOAA, 2005-12-11

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ATMOSPHERIC MONITORING: GEMS Objectives

global operational system for monitoring & forecasting atmospheric composition

global retrospective analyses 2000-2007

several regional air-quality forecasting systems

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ATMOS. MONITOR.: BB Observation Requirements

Product Types:amount emitted: aerosol, trace gases locationtime injection height profile

Availability:global~25 km spatial resolutionseveral hours to one day time resolution near-real time and retrospectively covering many years

(>8a)

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LAND MONITORING: Selected Objectives

to model vegetation as part of the global carbon cycle quantitatively

including carbon flux due to fire

to characterise behaviour of land cover types with repeated fire events

typical fire repeat periodtypical fire intensitytypical fire seasonality…

to monitor land cover changepartially due to fire, e.g. tropical deforestation

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LAND MONITORING: Fire Product Requirements

Products:amount of biomass burnttype of vegetation burntdate of fire

AvailabilityGlobal level products 25x25kmconsistent multi-year time series (>10a)

diurnal cycleseasonal distribution inter-annual changes

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Two types of fire products accessible from Earth obs. systems

Area burnt

- Burnt area- Burnt pixel- Burnt scar

BURNT AREA product

Fire front- Active fire- Hot spot- Fire pixel- Fire count

ACTIVE FIRE product

OBSERVATIONS

• thermal emission, MIR• only during fire

• spectrally flat• BRDF flat• dark• only after fire

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traditional:

Fire Radiative Power (FRP): M(…) = FRP * time * scaling factor * emission factor(…)

M (…) = Area . Biomass . Burning efficiency. Emission factor

Globe: ~ 400 millions hectares burnt in 2000Med. Basin: ~ 500000 hectares

Dry tropical grass savanna: ~ 2 tons/hectareMoist tropical savanna: ~ 10 tons/hectareBoreal forest: ~ 20 tons/hectareMoist tropical forest: ~ 40 tons/hectare

~ 25% forest -- ~ 80% savannaWoodland & forests~ 1600 g CO2 / kg biomassGrasslands~ 1700 g CO2 / kg biomass

Fuel: T. ha-1 ????

“pixels” burnt per vegetation type

Area burnt per vegetation type: ha

OBSERVATIONS: Calculating Emission Amounts

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OBSERVATIONS: Existing Products (NRT)

Active Fire Products yes/no-fire-product from: MODIS, AATSR (WFA), MSG,

AVHRR (IGBP), TRMM-VIRS, SPOT-VGT (VGT2Africa) quantitative from: GOES-E/W (WF-ABBA), MODIS (FRP)

Large fires may saturate MIR channel (~4μ). Small fires are not detected.

Burnt Area from: AVHRR (GBA1992-1999), SPOT-VGT (GBA2000), AATSR (GLOBSCAR)

Accurate emission products often require small pixel sizes (~500m) and calibration with even smaller pixel sizes, e.g. BIRD.

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Some Conclusions on Fire Products

No current product satisfies all requirements.LEO spatial coverage/resolution complements GEO temporal

resolution.Hot spots (tropical forest) complement burnt area products.

[C. Michel et al., JGR 2005]need regionalised approach

Many existing products are inconsistent. [Boschetti et al. 2004]

Several new operational products are anticipated. Fire Radiative Power from SEVIRI (M. Wooster) WF_ABBA from global GEO system (E. Prins) Burnt Area from MODIS (D. Roy) Burnt Area from VEGETATION 2000-2006 (GDBAv1) Burnt Area from GEOLAND (BAG)

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PROPOSE: Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS)combining complementary satellite observations with land

products and meteorologysingle, consistent processing for all GMES systems regionalised: events in mid-lat/boreal, statistics in tropics

geoland, …

GEMS

satellitefire product

satelliteradiance

land coverclimatology

fireclimatology

land coverproduct

fireproduct

Global FireAssimilation

System

global fireemissions

greenhousegases

reactivegases

aerosols

regionalair quality

carbon

meteorology

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SUMMARY

Biomass Burning (BB) emissions are needed globally in near-real time as well as in consistent multi-year time series.

No suitable BB emission product is available. Principal shortcomings are accuracy, delivery time, temporal resolution, geographical coverage.

Various fire observations complement each other.

We propose the development of a Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) to serve the GMES requirements.

Product generation needs to exploit existing observations more completely.

FRP is very promising due to accuracy of emitted amount calculation and temporal resolution.

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MORE INFORMATION

www.ecmwf.int/research/EU_projects/HALOwww.ecmwf.int/research/EU_projects/GEMSwww.gmes-geoland.info j.kaiser@ecmwf.int

This work has been funded by the European Commission through the FP6 projects HALO, GEMS, and GEOLAND.

THANK YOU!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS