SIMULATING LOCAL AND INTERCONTINENTAL POLLUTANT EFFECTS OF 
BIOMASS BURNING: INTEGRATION OF SEVERAL REMOTELY SENSED DATASETS 
Robert B. Chatfield 
John A. Vastano 
Liane Guild 
Christine Hlavka 
James A. Brass 
NASA Ames Research Center 
Earth Systems Science Division (245-5) 
Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA 
ISPRS Commission VII / Working Group 7 
ABSTRACT 
Burning to clear land for crops and to destroy pests is an integral and largely unavoldable part of tropical 
agriculture. It is easy to note but difficult to quantity using remote sensing. This report describes our efforts 
to integrate remotely sensed data into our computer model of tropical chemical trace-gas emissions weather, 
and reaction chemistry (using the MSS mesoscale model and our own Global-Regional Atmospheric 
Chemistry Simulator). The effects of burning over the continents of Africa and South America have been 
noticed in observations from several satellites. Smoke plumes hundreds of kilometres long may be seen 
individually, or may merge into a large smoke pall over thousands of kilometres of these continents. These 
features are related to intense pollution in the much more confined regions with heavy burning. These 
emissions also translocate nitrogen thousands of kilometres in the tropical ecosystems, with large fixed- 
nitrogen losses balanced partially by locally intense fertilization downwind, where nitric acid is rained out. 
At a much larger scale, various satellite measurements have indicated the escape of carbon monoxide and 
ozone into large filaments which extend across the Tropical an Southern Atlantic Ocean. Our work relates the 
source emissions, estimated in part from remote sensing, in part from conventional surface reports, to the 
concentrations of these gases over these intercontinental regions. We will mention work in progress to use 
meteorological satellite data (AVHRR, GOES, an Meteosat) to estimate the surface temperature and extent 
and height biogeochemistry. We will compare our simulations and interpretation of remote observations to 
the international cooperation involving Brazil, South Africa, and the USA in the TRACE-A (Transport and 
atmospheric Chemistry near the Equator - Atlantic) and SAFARI (Southem Africa Fire Atmosphere 
Research Initiative) and remote-sensing/aircraft/ecosystem observational campaigns. 
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