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Advances in Remote Sensing of Biomass Burning

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A special issue of Remote Sensing (ISSN 2072-4292). This special issue belongs to the section "Atmospheric Remote Sensing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 March 2022) | Viewed by 14135

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Mariana Adam

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

National Institute of Research and Development for Optoelectronics - INOE 2000, Magurele, Romania
Interests: aerosol and water vapor remote sensing; aerosol optical and microphysical properties from lidar and insitu measurements

Prof. Dr. Michaël Sicard

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

CommSensLab, Dept. of Signal Theory and Communications, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: optical remote sensing; remote sensing; lidar; optics; aerosols; mineral dust; pollen; aerosol-cloud interactions; radiative forcing; shortwave; longwave; satellite sensors; transport modeling
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We invite researchers to contribute with original research articles and review articles dealing with the remote sensing of biomass burning.

The main goal of this special issue is to make use of the advanced active and passive remote sensing methods, for determining or understanding the geometry, optical and microphysical properties of biomass burning smoke, at source’s location and/or remote locations. Further applications, such as smoke’s impact on radiation, precipitation, climate, environment and human health (from regional to global scales), are welcome.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Remote sensing of biomass burning using ground, airborne and/or satellite lidars
Remote sensing of biomass burning using photometry and radiation measurements at ground, airborne or satellite
Synergic approaches of active and passive remote sensing, ground and airborne/satellites instrumentation
Remote sensing of biomass burning versus smoke transport models
Characterization of the optical and microphysical properties of short- and/or long-range transported smoke
Studies of the biomass burning sources in relation with smoke observations in remote locations
Biomass burning studies using data from lidar networks (e.g. EARLINET, MPLNET, CIS-LINET, GALION AD-Net, LALINET, NDACC)
Near real time monitoring of biomass burning smoke using active remote sensing networks

Dr. Mariana Adam
Prof. Michaël Sicard
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

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Keywords

Remote sensing of biomass burning using ground, airborne and/or satellite lidars
Remote sensing of biomass burning using photometry and radiation measurements at ground, airborne or satellite
Synergic approaches of active and passive remote sensing, ground and airborne/satellites instrumentation
Remote sensing of biomass burning versus smoke transport models
Characterization of the optical and microphysical properties of short- and/or long-range transported smoke
Studies of the biomass burning sources in relation with smoke observations in remote locations
Biomass burning studies using data from lidar networks (e.g. EARLINET, MPLNET, CIS-LINET, GALION AD-Net, LALINET, NDACC)
Near real time monitoring of biomass burning smoke using active remote sensing networks

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 4312 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Three-Dimensional Distribution of Biomass Burning Aerosols from Australian Wildfires Observed by TROPOMI Satellite Observations

by Farouk Lemmouchi, Juan Cuesta, Maxim Eremenko, Claude Derognat, Guillaume Siour, Gaëlle Dufour, Pasquale Sellitto, Solène Turquety, Dung Tran, Xiong Liu, Peter Zoogman, Ronny Lutz and Diego Loyola

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(11), 2582; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14112582 - 27 May 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2597

Abstract

We present a novel passive satellite remote sensing approach for observing the three-dimensional distribution of aerosols emitted from wildfires. This method, called AEROS5P, retrieves vertical profiles of aerosol extinction from cloud-free measurements of the TROPOMI satellite sensor onboard the Sentinel 5 Precursor mission. It uses a Tikhonov–Phillips regularization, which iteratively fits near-infrared and visible selected reflectances to simultaneously adjust the vertical distribution and abundance of aerosols. The information on the altitude of the aerosol layers is provided by TROPOMI measurements of the reflectance spectra at the oxygen A-band near 760 nm. In the present paper, we use this new approach for observing the daily evolution of the three-dimensional distribution of biomass burning aerosols emitted by Australian wildfires on 20–24 December 2019. Aerosol optical depths (AOD) derived by vertical integration of the aerosol extinction profiles retrieved by AEROS5P are compared with MODIS, VIIRS and AERONET coincident observations. They show a good agreement in the horizontal distribution of biomass burning aerosols, with a correlation coefficient of 0.87 and a mean absolute error of 0.2 with respect to VIIRS. Moderately lower correlations (0.63) were found between AODs from AEROS5P and MODIS, while the range of values for this comparison was less than half of that with respect to VIIRS. A fair agreement was found between coincident transects of vertical profiles of biomass burning aerosols derived from AEROS5P and from the CALIOP spaceborne lidar. The mean altitudes of these aerosols derived from these two measurements showed a good agreement, with a small mean bias (185 m) and a correlation coefficient of 0.83. Moreover, AEROS5P observations reveal the height of injection of the biomass burning aerosols in 3D. The highest injection heights during the period of analysis were coincident with the largest fire radiative power derived from MODIS. Consistency was also found with respect to the vertical stability of the atmosphere. The AEROS5P approach provides retrievals for cloud-free scenes over several regions, although currently limited to situations with a dominating presence of smoke particles. Future developments will also aim at observing other aerosol species. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Remote Sensing of Biomass Burning)

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18 pages, 5289 KiB

Open AccessArticle

On the Radiative Impact of Biomass-Burning Aerosols in the Arctic: The August 2017 Case Study

by Filippo Calì Quaglia, Daniela Meloni, Giovanni Muscari, Tatiana Di Iorio, Virginia Ciardini, Giandomenico Pace, Silvia Becagli, Annalisa Di Bernardino, Marco Cacciani, James W. Hannigan, Ivan Ortega and Alcide Giorgio di Sarra

Remote Sens. 2022, 14(2), 313; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14020313 - 11 Jan 2022

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2219

Abstract

Boreal fires have increased during the last years and are projected to become more intense and frequent as a consequence of climate change. Wildfires produce a wide range of effects on the Arctic climate and ecosystem, and understanding these effects is crucial for predicting the future evolution of the Arctic region. This study focuses on the impact of the long-range transport of biomass-burning aerosol into the atmosphere and the corresponding radiative perturbation in the shortwave frequency range. As a case study, we investigate an intense biomass-burning (BB) event which took place in summer 2017 in Canada and subsequent northeastward transport of gases and particles in the plume leading to exceptionally high values (0.86) of Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) at 500 nm measured in northwestern Greenland on 21 August 2017. This work characterizes the BB plume measured at the Thule High Arctic Atmospheric Observatory (THAAO;

{76.53}^{\circ}

{68.74}^{\circ}

W) in August 2017 by assessing the associated shortwave aerosol direct radiative impact over the THAAO and extending this evaluation over the broader region (

60^{\circ}

N–

80^{\circ}

110^{\circ}

W–

0^{\circ}

E). The radiative transfer simulations with MODTRAN6.0 estimated an aerosol heating rate of up to 0.5 K/day in the upper aerosol layer (8–12 km). The direct aerosol radiative effect (ARE) vertical profile shows a maximum negative value of −45.4 Wm

^{- 2}

for a

78^{\circ}

solar zenith angle above THAAO at 3 km altitude. A cumulative surface ARE of −127.5 TW is estimated to have occurred on 21 August 2017 over a portion (∼

3.1 \times 10^{6}

^{2}

) of the considered domain (

60^{\circ}

N–

80^{\circ}

110^{\circ}

W–

0^{\circ}

E). ARE regional mean daily values over the same portion of the domain vary between −65 and −25 Wm

^{- 2}

. Although this is a limited temporal event, this effect can have significant influence on the Arctic radiative budget, especially in the anticipated scenario of increasing wildfires. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Remote Sensing of Biomass Burning)

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22 pages, 8365 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Detection of Fire Smoke Plumes Based on Aerosol Scattering Using VIIRS Data over Global Fire-Prone Regions

by Xiaoman Lu, Xiaoyang Zhang, Fangjun Li, Mark A. Cochrane and Pubu Ciren

Remote Sens. 2021, 13(2), 196; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020196 - 08 Jan 2021

Cited by 21 | Viewed by 4612

Abstract

Smoke from fires significantly influences climate, weather, and human health. Fire smoke is traditionally detected using an aerosol index calculated from spectral contrast changes. However, such methods usually miss thin smoke plumes. It also remains challenging to accurately separate smoke plumes from dust, clouds, and bright surfaces. To improve smoke plume detections, this paper presents a new scattering-based smoke detection algorithm (SSDA) depending mainly on visible and infrared imaging radiometer suite (VIIRS) blue and green bands. The SSDA is established based on the theory of Mie scattering that occurs when the diameter of an atmospheric particulate is similar to the wavelength of the scattered light. Thus, smoke commonly causes Mie scattering in VIIRS blue and green bands because of the close correspondence between smoke particulate diameters and the blue/green band wavelengths. For developing the SSDA, training samples were selected from global fire-prone regions in North America, South America, Africa, Indonesia, Siberia, and Australia. The SSDA performance was evaluated against the VIIRS aerosol detection product and smoke detections from the ultraviolet aerosol index using manually labeled fire smoke plumes as a benchmark. Results show that the SSDA smoke detections are superior to existing products due chiefly to the improved ability of the algorithm to detect thin smoke and separate fire smoke from other surface types. Moreover, the SSDA smoke distribution pattern exhibits a high spatial correlation with the global fire density map, suggesting that SSDA is capable of detecting smoke plumes of fires in near real-time across the globe. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Remote Sensing of Biomass Burning)

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18 pages, 8425 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Investigating the Long-Range Transport of Aerosol Plumes Following the Amazon Fires (August 2019): A Multi-Instrumental Approach from Ground-Based and Satellite Observations

by Hassan Bencherif, Nelson Bègue, Damaris Kirsch Pinheiro, David Jean du Preez, Jean-Maurice Cadet, Fábio Juliano da Silva Lopes, Lerato Shikwambana, Eduardo Landulfo, Thomas Vescovini, Casper Labuschagne, Jonatan João Silva, Vagner Anabor, Pierre-François Coheur, Nkanyiso Mbatha, Juliette Hadji-Lazaro, Venkataraman Sivakumar and Cathy Clerbaux

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(22), 3846; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12223846 - 23 Nov 2020

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 3561

Abstract

Despite a number of studies on biomass burning (BB) emissions in the atmosphere, observation of the associated aerosols and pollutants requires continuous efforts. Brazil, and more broadly Latin America, is one of the most important seasonal sources of BB, particularly in the Amazon region. Uncertainty about aerosol loading in the source regions is a limiting factor in terms of understanding the role of aerosols in climate modelling. In the present work, we investigated the Amazon BB episode that occurred during August 2019 and made the international headlines, especially when the smoke plumes plunged distant cities such as São Paulo into darkness. Here, we used satellite and ground-based observations at different locations to investigate the long-range transport of aerosol plumes generated by the Amazon fires during the study period. The monitoring of BB activity was carried out using fire related pixel count from the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Aqua and Terra platforms, while the distribution of carbon monoxide (CO) concentrations and total columns were obtained from the infrared atmospheric sounding interferometer (IASI) onboard the METOP-A and METOP-B satellites. In addition, AERONET sun-photometers as well as the MODIS instrument made aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements over the study region. Our datasets are consistent with each other and highlight AOD and CO variations and long-range transport of the fire plume from the source regions in the Amazon basin. We used the Lagrangian transport model FLEXPART (FLEXible PARTicle) to simulate backward dispersion, which showed good agreement with satellite and ground measurements observed over the study area. The increase in Rossby wave activity during the 2019 austral winter the Southern Hemisphere may have contributed to increasing the efficiency of large-scale transport of aerosol plumes generated by the Amazon fires during the study period. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Remote Sensing of Biomass Burning)

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