NASA Direct Readout Active Fire and Burn Scar Mapping Products

1. NASA Direct Readout Active Fire and Burn Scar Mapping Products Louis Giglio Science Systems & Applications, Inc. / University of Maryland International EOS/NPP Direct Readout Meeting 1 April 2008

3. Satellite-Based Active Fire Products Identify where fires are actively burning at time of satellite overpass (and implicitly when they are burning) Possibly provide additional information about fires at time of satellite overpass Intensity, average temperature, instantaneous size, rate of combustion, injection height, etc.

6. Mean Terra MODIS Fire Radiative Power

7. MODIS Direct Readout Active Fire Status Matches �official� MODIS fire detection algorithm (currently Collection 5) Developed in the MODIS Rapid Response System Initial release ~2003 (Collection 3) Refinements planned for Collection 6 Additional refinements planned for Direct-Readout release

8. Direct Readout Implementation Code written in C Stand alone, �non-ECS� version SDP Toolkit, PCFs, run-time environment variables not required Not a pig Fast (~1 minute/granule @ 1 GHz) Small memory footprint (< 10 MB) Source code available from GSFC DRL http://directreadout.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/

9. Planned Refinements Optional compact fire location output file Algorithm improvements Reduce false alarms in problem areas Recognize optically thick smoke (vs. cloud) Improve detection confidence estimate (again) Regional customization Suggestions/complaints welcome from DR community

10. Regional Customization Global algorithm for global application Always a balance between omission and commission errors Several known independent efforts to date SE USA, Australia, SE Asia, Italy, others? Standard multi-region version of code planned South Africa Ocean only (!) Continental United States

11. Caveat �Fire location�-only products omit useful information ASCII (�text�) files Lack spatial context cloud cover, missing data, water Sometimes inappropriate for research purposes (yet used anyway!)

13. MODIS Active Fire Validation (2) Fire mask using ASTER imagery Sometimes degraded by frequent ASTER saturation Fire radiative power retrieval using ASTER Cannot use simple middle-infrared band approach used for MODIS with ASTER Often degraded by frequent ASTER saturation Simulated MODIS imagery Independent burn scar maps Usually not able to evaluate false alarm rate

16. Example Simulation Results MODIS Temperate deciduous rainforest Night 0� scan angle Summer No background fires

17. NPP/NPOESS Active Fire EDR Current Status (1) VIIRS instrument generally in good shape Some outstanding issues relevant to fire On-board aggregation of saturated M15 pixels (possibly moot) Band-to-band coregistration

18. NPP/NPOESS Active Fire EDR Current Status (2) Current code is repackaged Collection 4 MODIS code Current product is simply a list of fire locations Restricts both science and operational use Science Team advocating MODIS-like product fire mask (cloud, fire, no observation, etc.) FRP Bureaucratic hurdles for changing product are substantial All parties have good intentions but fire products have extremely low priority � not a true EDR but an ARP Solution: Develop independent code and product for DR and science communities

19. Satellite-Based Burned Area Products Map spatial extent of post-fire burn scars over a particular time period

22. �Official� MODIS Burned Area Product Roy et al. (2002, 2005) BRDF-based approach 500-m, daily resolution Production commenced in late 2006 Under evaluation by Science Team and external collaborators Full release as early as summer 2008 Immediate reprocessing planned Computationally demanding DR version not yet ready

24. Consistency conceptual scheme

25. �looking at one algorithm step: Production, first of a kind, multiannual product Production, first of a kind, multiannual product

26. A closer look at the monthly product� Tile h17v06 2000306 (November 2000)

27. A closer look at the monthly product�

31. Approach Use �cleaned� active fire maps to select burned and unburned training samples from temporal composites Extract conditional PDFs for burned and unburned pixels Assign prior burned probability to each pixel Bayesian classifier + supplementary relative threshold tests

43. Current Implementation Code written in C Stand alone, �non-ECS� version SDP Toolkit, PCFs, run-time environment variables not required Moderate pig I/O considerable Map one month of one MODIS tile in ~2 hours ~300 MB semi-adjustable memory footprint

44. Current Input Requirements Daily gridded surface (or corrected) reflectance Bands 1, 2, 5, and 7 Terra and/or Aqua MODIS Reads MOD09GHK and MODHDFSR directly Corrected reflectance ingest partially implemented Daily gridded active fire maps Preferably Terra + Aqua MODIS Other sensors Land cover map MODIS MOD12Q1 by default but regional even better All input data coregistered in MODIS sinusoidal projection

45. Short-Term MODIS Direct Readout Implementation Delayed production Cumulative burn scar map through day N available on day N + ~15 Comparable quality to the official MODIS burned area product Handle �standard� Direct Broadcast input data format(s) define �standard� format or formats Substantial data staging requirements In practice need M + 2 months of daily data on disk to generate M-month map

46. Long-Term MODIS Direct Readout Implementation Rapid production Cumulative map through day N available on day N Map is refined as additional days are acquired Minimal staging requirements ~10-day moving archive Large reduction in I/O