Seminar

Abstract

Atmospheric modeling of biomass burning smoke is required by a wide range of applications, ranging from climate science to prediction of visibility and air quality. The Naval Research Laboratory is the developer of a global aerosol forecasting system, the Navy Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System (NAAPS), supporting Navy needs for prediction of absorbing and scattering species in the atmosphere. Incorporation of smoke in NAAPS is accomplished via the Fire Locating and Monitoring of Burning Emissions (FLAMBE) model based on satellite detections of active fires. This system provides hourly estimates of global smoke emissions in near-real-time at the spatial resolution of the input satellite data (1-6 km).

This talk discusses two aspects of the smoke modeling problem: estimation of smoke release based on globally available observations, and prediction of fire and smoke behavior within the forecast cycle (1-5 days). In the first part, we discuss observations used for smoke estimation, and strategies to mitigate the inherent limitations in those observations. In the second part, we discuss fire-weather interaction, and efforts to improve short-term forecasting of fire ignition, growth, decay, and extinction. Finally, we discuss the outlook for improved prediction of fires and smoke in the context of potential observations from upcoming field campaigns."

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Edward Hyer is a physical scientist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland College Park. His research focuses on land-atmosphere interactions, with a focus on using remote sensing observations to improve model representations of land surface and atmospheric phenomena, particularly related to biomass burning.