NASA Rainfall Data and Global Fire Weather

Credits

• Visualizer

  • Cheng Zhang (USRA) [Lead]

• Writers

  • Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]
  • Robert Field (Columbia University)

• Editor

  • Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]

• Scientists

  • Robert Field (Columbia University) [Lead]
  • Dalia B Kirschbaum (NASA/GSFC)

• Producer

  • Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]

• Narrator

  • Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBR Wyle Services, LLC) [Lead]

Related Pages

• Sources

  • 

    ID: 4634 Visualization

    Global Fire Weather Database

    June 28th, 2018
    (updated Nov. 15th, 2023)

    The Global Fire WEather Database (GFWED) integrates different weather factors influencing the likelihood of a vegetation fire starting and spreading. It is based on the Fire Weather Index (FWI) System, which tracks the dryness of three general fuel classes, and the potential behavior of a fire if it were to start. Each day, FWI values are calculated from global weather data, including satellite rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission.The FWI System is the most widely used fire danger rating system in the world, and has been adopted for different boreal, temperate and tropical fire environments. GFWED provides a globally consistent fire weather dataset for fire researchers and managers to apply locally. The Fire Weather Index component is suitable as a general index of fire danger. Globally, shifts in continental-scale fire activity follow seasonal changes in the FWI. Over South America and Africa, regions of high FWI and active agricultural burning shift with the tropical rain belts, seen in the GPM precipitation overlay. Over North America and Eurasia, the FWI will ‘activate’ in the spring, and shows how week-to-week surges in fire activity can be driven by high FWI values. ||

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  • 

    ID: 4484 Visualization

    Global Fires 2015-2016 Visualizations

    Aug. 16th, 2016
    (updated Nov. 14th, 2023)

    Global Fires 2015-2016, with Dates and Colorbar || global_fires_statelines_0000_print.jpg (1024x576) [73.9 KB] || global_fires_statelines_0000_searchweb.png (320x180) [41.4 KB] || global_fires_statelines_0000_thm.png (80x40) [4.6 KB] || frames/1920x1080_16x9_30p/global_fires_statelines/ (1920x1080) [64.0 KB] || global_fires_statelines_1080p30.mp4 (1920x1080) [8.5 MB] || global_fires_statelines_1080p30.webm (1920x1080) [2.3 MB] ||

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  • 

    ID: 3868 Visualization

    Global Fire Observations and MODIS NDVI

    Oct. 18th, 2011
    (updated Nov. 14th, 2023)

    This visualization leads viewers on a narrated global tour of fire detections beginning in July 2002 and ending July 2011. The visualization also includes vegetation and snow cover data to show how fires respond to seasonal changes. The tour begins in Australia in 2002 by showing a network of massive grassland fires spreading across interior Australia as well as the greener Eucalyptus forests in the northern and eastern part of the continent. The tour then shifts to Asia where large numbers of agricultural fires are visible first in China in June 2004, then across a huge swath of Europe and western Russia in August, and then across India and Southeast Asia through the early part of 2005. It moves next to Africa, the continent that has more abundant burning than any other. MODIS observations have shown that some 70 percent of the world's fires occur in Africa alone. In what's a fairly average burning season, the visualization shows a huge outbreak of savanna fires during the dry season in Central Africa in July, August, and September of 2006, driven mainly by agricultural activities but also by the fact that the region experiences more lightning than anywhere else in the world. The tour shifts next to South America where a steady flickering of fire is visible across much of the Amazon rainforest with peaks of activity in September and November of 2009. Almost all of the fires in the Amazon are the direct result of human activity, including slash-and-burn agriculture, because the high moisture levels in the region prevent inhibit natural fires from occurring. It concludes in North America, a region where fires are comparatively rare. North American fires make up just 2 percent of the world's burned area each year. The fires that receive the most attention in the United States, the uncontrolled forest fires in the West, are less visible than the wave of agricultural fires prominent in the Southeast and along the Mississippi River Valley, but some of the large wildfires that struck Texas earlier this spring are visible. More information on the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) is available at http://maps.geog.umd.edu/firms/. ||

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