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The use of ATSR active fire counts for estimating relative patterns of biomass burning – a study from the boreal forest region
Author(s) -
Kasischke Eric S.,
Hewson Jennifer H.,
Stocks Brian,
van der Werf Guido,
Randerson James
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2003gl017859
Subject(s) - environmental science , taiga , boreal , radiometer , satellite , smoke , fire regime , atmospheric sciences , biomass (ecology) , fire detection , meteorology , remote sensing , physical geography , ecology , geography , forestry , geology , oceanography , ecosystem , physics , engineering , aerospace engineering , biology , thermodynamics
Satellite fire products have the potential to construct inter‐annual time series of fire activity, but estimating area burned requires considering biases introduced by orbiting geometry, fire behavior, and the presence of clouds and smoke. Here we evaluated the performance of fire counts from the Advanced Thermal Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) for the boreal forest region using area burned information from other sources. We found ATSR detection rate varied between regions and different years, being higher during large fire years than during small fire years. The results show ATSR fire counts do not represent an unbiased sample of fire activity, and independent validation may be required prior to using this data set in studies of global emissions from biomass burning.