Real-time monitoring of South American smoke particle emissions and transport using a coupled remote sensing/box-model approach

Since August 2000, the Wild fire Automated Biomass Burning Algorithm (WF_ABBA) has been generating half-hourly fire hot spot analyses for the Western Hemisphere using GOES satellites to provide the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Aerosol Analysis and Prediction System (NAAPS) with near-real-time fire products. These are used to generate smoke particle fluxes for aerosol transport forecasting to benefit the scientific, weather, and regulatory communities. In South America, fire hot-spot analysis is shown to be adequate for generating real-time smoke source functions for aerosol forecast models. We present smoke coverage and flux estimates based on the WF_ABBA and NAAPS products. Modeled fluxes of emissions for 2001–2002 are ∼25 + 10 Tg yr⁻¹, similar to previous estimates. Correlations of optical depth with MODIS and AERONET show good agreement with observations. Comparisons of NAAPS aerosol fields with MODIS also show potential clear sky and other biases as smoke is transported into the Atlantic Ocean and the ITCZ.