new global burned area product for climate assessment of fire impacts

• Published in: Global ecology and biogeography Vol. 25; no. 5; pp. 619 - 629
• Main Authors: Chuvieco, Emilio, Yue, Chao, Heil, Angelika, Mouillot, Florent, Alonso‐Canas, Itziar, Padilla, Marc, Pereira, Jose Miguel, Oom, Duarte, Tansey, Kevin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Blackwell Science 01.05.2016; Blackwell Publishing Ltd; John Wiley & Sons Ltd; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc; Wiley
• Series: May 2016
• Subjects: atmospheric emissions; biomass; burned area; burning; carbon; carbon cycle; climate; climate change; Climatology; data collection; Earth Sciences; Eastern European region; Emissions; Environmental Sciences; essential climate variables; Fire disturbance; fires; MACROECOLOGICAL METHODS; MERIS; remote sensing; satellite earth observation; Sciences of the Universe; wildland fires; Eastern European region; ANE, Europe; wildland fires; essential climate variables; satellite earth observation; atmospheric emissions; remote sensing; MERIS; burned area; Fire disturbance
• ISSN: 1466-822X; 1466-8238; 1466-822X
• DOI: 10.1111/geb.12440

Aim This paper presents a new global burned area (BA) product developed within the framework of the European Space Agency's Climate Change Initiative (CCI) programme, along with a first assessment of its potentials for atmospheric and carbon cycle modelling. Innovation Methods are presented for generating a new global BA product, along with a comparison with existing BA products, in terms of BA extension, fire size and shapes and emissions derived from biomass burnings. Main conclusions Three years of the global BA product were produced, accounting for a total BA of between 360 and 380 Mha year⁻¹. General omission and commission errors for BA were 0.76 and 0.64, but they decreased to 0.51 and 0.52, respectively, for sites with more than 10% BA. Intercomparison with other existing BA datasets found similar spatial and temporal trends, mainly with the BA included in the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED4), although regional differences were found (particularly in the 2006 fires of eastern Europe). The simulated carbon emissions from biomass burning averaged 2.1 Pg C year⁻¹.