f
D O C U M E N T
Near real-time multi-satellite
detection of vegetation fires
U SER R EQUIREMENTS D OCUMENT
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0.1
Draft
Technical Note
a
ESRIN
Via Galileo Galilei - Casella Postale 64 - 00044 Frascati Italy
Tel. (39) 06 941801 - Fax (39) 06 94180 280
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A P P R O V A L
Title
titre
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Near real-time multi-satellite detection of vegetation fires
issue 1
issue
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date
date
Olivier Boucher, Bertrand Crouzille
Guy Brasseur, Martin Schultz
Tony Hollingsworth, Jean-Jacques Morcrette
approved by
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T A B L E
O F
C O N T E N T S
1
END-USER-ORGANISATIONS PRESENTATION .........................................................................4
1.1
End-User-Organisation Description .......................................................................................................4
1.2
Brief description of the Information Service Required and background ....................................................4
1.3
Current practices...................................................................................................................................4
1.4
Motivations and expectations.................................................................................................................4
1.5
The end-user-organisation in the project .................................................................................................5
1.6
End-User-Group ...................................................................................................................................5
1.7
Users involved in the Project .................................................................................................................7
2
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES SPECIFICATIONS ..........................................................................7
2.1
Service case 1 .......................................................................................................................................7
2.1.1 Service Site Description ....................................................................................................................7
2.1.2 Product/Service Description ..............................................................................................................7
3
REFERENCES ...........................................................................................................................9
4
RELATED PROJECTS ................................................................................................................9
5
ACRONYMS AND WEB SITES .................................................................................................. 10
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1
END-USER-ORGANISATIONS PRESENTATION
1.1
End-User-Organisation Description
o
o
o
Name: European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Type of organisation: International meteorological centre
General activity: The ECMWF Operations Department produces twice daily a variational analysis
of conventional and satellite meteorological observations, followed by 10-day forecast at high
resolution (TL511 L60). It also produces a daily 50-member ensemble of 10-day forecasts at TL255
L40 resolution, and series of seasonal forecasts at lower resolution. The ECMWF Research
Department ensures the scientific development of the modules of the models used for such analysis
and forecasts.
o Structure:
o Department/Division/Section/Unit specific role:
o Activities related to the project:
GEMS
o Other additional information:
o Contact person and contact data:
European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts
Shinfield Park, Reading Berkshire RG2 9AX, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 118 9499000
Fax: +44 118 9869450
1.2
Brief description of the Information Service Required and background
Implementation of a Global Monitoring of Environment and Security (GMES) system for prediction and
monitoring of atmospheric chemistry and aerosol requires accurate, real-time observations of emissions
from vegetation fires. Such an implementation is foreseen at ECMWF within the GEMS (Global
Environmental Monitoring System) project. We require detection of vegetation fires from sun-synchronous
and geostationary satellites in near real-time, i.e. with a time lag of about 2 days in a first stage and of about
6-12 hours in a second stage.
1.3
Current practices
ESA/ESRIN currently provide fire counts from ATSR and AATSR with a time lag of about 12 months.
MODIS fire count products.
1.4
Motivations and expectations
There is an increasing societal demand for air quality knowledge and forecast, also known as “chemical
weather” forecast. Air quality is no longer considered as a regional problem, but it has in fact a global
dimension. Vegetation fires of both natural and anthropogenic origin play a key role in determining the
variability of the atmospheric chemical composition. It is expected that a near real time vegetation fire
product will increase significantly our ability to forecast atmospheric air quality (ozone, aerosols, …).
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1.5
The end-user-organisation in the project
Please, provide a description of the responsibilities that the user will undertake during the project: Such
responsibilities should account for a minimum of 3 men/months of effort and should be distributed among
the following activities:
o
o
o
o
o
o
Provide data access for prototyping and validation activities;
User requirements consolidation;
Products validation (including ground data acquisition);
Service assessment;
Coordination of the user-group if any (Option 1);
Promotional and dissemination activities;
This is information should be supported by a letter of commitment (attached as an appendix to this
document);
This information service is requested by ECMWF who will emplement an operational forecasting product
in the framework of the GEMS project. The LOA and the MPI-MET will use the data for research purposes
and will provide ECMWF with the necessary expertise on how to integrate this service in the atmospheric
chemistry and aerosol forecasting and monitoring system. Once established and evaluated, it is expected
that this service and the subsequent operational forecasting and monitoring products provided by ECMWF
will be used by a large number of groups (public and private) in Europe and elsewhere.
1.6
End-User-Group
The end-user organisation will collaborate with national meteorological services and research institutes
within an IP or IP-like structure. Research organisations taking an active part to the project include the Max
Planck Institute for Meteorology (Hamburg, Germany) and the Laboratoire d’Optique Atmophérique (Lille,
France).
o
o
o
Name: LOA (Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique)
Type of organisation: Public government research institute
General activity: Atmospheric optics aims at modelling the propagation through the atmosphere of
the visible light received from the sun and of the infrared light emited by the terrestrial surfaces and
atmosphere. Studies conducted at LOA in this context are addressed to the global climate problem.
A first objective is to quantify the impact of visible and infrared radiation on the different planetary
energetic exchanges, particularly to specify how clouds influence the Earth radiative budget, whose
they constitute an essential factor. The second objective relates to the characterization at the
regional and globe scale of different parameters directly related to the climate evolution (clouds,
aerosols, surfaces), mainly using satellite observations.
o
o
Structure:
Department/Division/Section/Unit specific role:
 Biogeochemical cycles of aerosols
o Regional and global scale modelling of aerosols
o radiative transfer problems in the atmosphere
o Simulation of the satellite signal in the solar spectrum
o atmospheric correction methods for ocean color and terrestrial observations
o study of desert dust by satellite remote-sensing in the thermal infrared
 Stratosphere - UV
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

o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Cloud - radiation interactions
Ocean color from space
Activities related to the project:
DAEDALUS and PHEONICS projects (fifth framework programme)
GEMS project (scheduled for the sixth framework programme)
GMES
Contact person and contact data:
Olivier Boucher
USTL, LOA UFR de Physique, Bâtiment P5
59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France
Tel : +33-3 20 43 62 30
boucher@loa.univ-lille1.fr
Name: MPI-MET (Max Planck Institut für Meteorologie)
Type of organisation: Public research institute
General activity: The institute undertakes fundamental climate system research with a major
emphasis on Earth system modelling. The main objective is to understand the variability of climate
on timescales from years to millennia, and the fundamental causes driving this variability, including
the anthropogenic influence.
Structure: The institute has 3 departments dealing with the global biogeochemistry, the physical
atmosphere and ocean, and with climate processes and observations.
Department/Division/Section/Unit specific role:
 Biogeochemical cycles
o Regional and global scale modelling of trace gases and aerosol
o Quantification of emission data
 Evaluation of models using data from spaceborne, airborne, and groundbased sensors.
Activities related to the project:
RETRO and PHOENICS projects (fifth framework programme)
GEMS project (scheduled for the sixth framework programme)
GMES
Contact person and contact data:
Martin Schultz
Biogeochemical Systems Department
Max Planck Institut für Meteorologie
Bundesstr. 55, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
Tel : +49 40 41173 308
martin.schultz@dkrz.de
User typology
ECMWF
National
meteorological
services
Table 1 - Description of End-User-Organisation typologies involved
in the information service under consideration
Role
Information Needs
Monitoring system for atmospheric Real-time and reliable information
composition, air quality forecast at 100 km regarding vegetation fires worldwide.
(50 km??) scale
Provide air quality forecast to the public
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Research
institutes
Parties of the
CLRTAP
1.7
Use air quality and aerosol forecast and
analysis for atmospheric research
Monitoring of transboundary transport of
air pollutants such as ozone and aerosols
Users involved in the Project
Table 2 - End-User-Organisations Involved in the Project
Typology
Contact Point
User
ECMWF (European Centre for
Medium Range Weather
Forecasts)
MPI (Max Planck Institute for
meteorology)
LOA (Laboratoire d’Optique
Atmosphérique)
2
European research organisation
Tony Hollingsworth, JeanJacques Mocrette
Research institute
Martin Schultz, Guy Brasseur
Public government research institute
Olivier Boucher
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES SPECIFICATIONS
In this section, the products and services that will be developed in the project should be specified. It is
assumed that a single service case is associated to a single location or service site. This structure may
change if a single product should be produced for several Service Sites.
2.1
Service case 1
2.1.1
SERVICE SITE DESCRIPTION
Study Site 1:
Geographical coordinates:
Brief Description:
Threats to the Site/Problems:
User organisations:
Available data:
2.1.2
global land surface
Latitude range: 50S-80N
Longitude range: 180W-180E
All continental areas, especially those covered by forests, savannah, etc..
AATSR (ENVISAT), MODIS, SEVIRI (MSG)
AVHRR-3 (future METOP series), VIIRS (future NPOESS series)
PRODUCT/SERVICE DESCRIPTION
General Description
General product description
Fire counts (and intensity)
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Users
Uses and benefits
Technical Product Specifications
Required spatial scale
Minimum cell size
Required Information layers
Product format
ECMWF (European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts),
LOA (Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique),
MPI (Max Planck Institute for Meteorology),
National meteorological services,
Parties of the CLRTAP
Air quality forecast and analysis for atmospheric research.
Provision of air quality forecast to the public.
Monitoring of transboundary transport of air pollutants such as ozone
and aerosols.
Satellite resolution
1 km2
land cover type, LAI or “greenness index”
1. Raw data in ASCII or other GTS format
2. Quick-look images (GIF)
Software platform
Required minimum accuracy
Service Specifications
Years of interest
Temporal range
Updating frequency
Temporal baseline
Ordering
Deliverable time required
Delivery format
2003 onwards (operational from 2004, backprocessing of 2003)
Update every 6 hours; during the first stage daily
Automatic delivery through GTS + web base ordering system.
“script access” (either ftp or per wget etc.)
About 2 days in the first stage (until 2006)
About 6 hours in a second stage (post-2006)
GTS + Web-base
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3
REFERENCES
O. Arino, M. Paganini, M. Simon, F. Ferrucci, E. Barro, M. Benvenuti, E. Chuvieco, E. Dwyer, F. Fierens,
Current and future activities of ESA related to forest fires, Proceedings of the EARsel 3rd international
workshop, Paris, 17-18 May 2001.
P. Goloub and O. Arino, Verification of the consistency of Polder aerosol index over land with ATSR2/ERS-2 fire product, Geophysical Research Letters, 27, 899-902, 2000.
M. Schultz, On the use of ATSR fire count data to estimate the seasonal and interannual variability of
vegetation fire emissions, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2, 387-395, 2002.
CREATE-DAEDALUS workplan available at http://loacli.univ-lille1.fr/Daedalus/index.html
4
RELATED PROJECTS
DAEDALUS
Atmospheric aerosols (tropospheric and stratospheric) are of great importance because of their role
in long-range transport of pollutants, their impacts on human health, visibility, continental and maritime
ecosystems, the stratospheric ozone layer, the Earth’s climate, thus requiring dedicated monitoring of their
concentrations and properties at the European and global scales. Aerosol data are available as a distribution
of local point measurements from the different European monitoring networks. Satellites allow to
extrapolate the spatial distribution of aerosol properties with a high spatial resolution (down to 1x1 km2
from ATSR-2 on ERS-2). Ground-based remote sensing techniques yield the column integrated optical
properties that drive climate-related issues while ground-based lidar measurements yield the vertical
structure, providing information for a variety of problems related to climate or air quality issues. There is a
good amount of aerosol data from ground-based or satellite-based instruments, with a strong contribution
from Europe, but these information lack compatibility and the related expertise are scattered among a large
number of institutes. At the same time, there is not always a clear expression of the demand for aerosol
products and the development of products is often technology driven. DAEDALUS aim to bridge the gap
between technologically available aerosol products and the users’ needs of recent observations on a variety
of time and spatial scales.
RETRO
Atmospheric trace gases and airborne particles have gained attention as air pollution threatens the
health of millions of people. While European regulations for emissions control have succeeded to minimize
e.g. peak ozone episodes during summer, the long-term exposure to key pollutants remains an issue. This
long-term exposure is caused by increasing “background” concentrations, which originate from various
anthropogenic and natural sources all over the globe. These changes in the average chemical composition of
the atmosphere also interact with climate change, which has been recognized as one of the key problems the
world is facing in coming years.
The establishment of global fields of the concentrations of key pollutants, and the analysis of their trend and
variability is an important task in order to provide a reliable baseline against which future changes can be
referenced and their consequences assessed. The RETRO project will provide such data sets for the period
over the past 40 years, using sophisticated global chemistry transport models and a variety of data sets from
ground based, air and space borne measurements, which will be assessed in terms of their quality and
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consistency. We will collaborate with other EU and national research projects and implement their results.
Results from the RETRO project will be accessible to a large user group consisting of environmental
authorities, policy makers, scientists, weather centers, and the general public.
GEMS
???
CAFE
Clean Air for Europe (CAFE) is a programme of technical analysis and policy development which
will lead to the adoption of a thematic strategy under the Sixth Environmental Action Programme in 2004.
The programme was launched in March 2001, its aim is to develop a long-term, strategic and integrated
policy to protect against the effects of air pollution on human health and the environment. The intention is
that CAFE will develop into a five-year policy cycle, with the first integrated clean air strategy being
adopted in 2004/2005.
GLOBCARBON
???
5
ACRONYMS AND WEB SITES
CLRTAP: Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution
DAEDALUS: Delivery of AErosol proDucts for Assimilation and environmentaL USe
GEMS: Global Environment Monitoring System
GMES: Global Monitoring of Environment and Security
CAFÉ: Clean Air for Europe
CLRTAP: http://www.unece.org/env/lrtap
DAEDALUS: http://loacli.univ-lille1.fr/Daedalus/index.html
EMEP: http://www.emep.int
RETRO: http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/projects/retro
GMES: http://www.gmes.info
CAFÉ: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/environment/air/cafe/index.htm