Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Quantitative Characterization Of Emissions From Biomass Burning Using Remote Sensing Measurements, Clare Paton-Walsh, Emma Young, David Griffith

Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: part A

We present a new method for deriving total emissions estimates from large vegetation fires using satellite-based measurements of aerosol optical depth. This method is based upon simultaneous measurements of total column amounts of trace gases and aerosol optical depth of the atmosphere through smoke plumes from Australian fires. These measurements were derived from ground-based solar remote sensing spectrometers in the infrared and UV-visible spectral regions and also provide emission ratios that may be used in more conventional bottom-up estimates of total emissions. Measurements of emissions from Australian forest fires are relatively sparse given the significance of this source to the …