Detection of smoke haze from vegetation fires using modis aerosol products

Abstract

Vegetation fires are a yearly occurrence in Southeast Asia. In addition to the direct effect on vegetation in the burnt areas, the fires often produce a large amount of smoke haze not only in the vicinity of the fires but also in areas downwind from the burning regions. In this paper we describe an operational system for generating the MOD04 aerosol product using the IMAPP software for detection of haze. The aerosol optical thickness (AOT) computed by the MOD04 algorithm is found to be effective in detecting haze caused by vegetation fires. A time series of the spatial distributions of smoke haze from fires in Sumatra in 2006 and 2007 is produced using the MOD04 product. Haze affected areas can be clearly distinguished from unaffected areas as they display significantly higher AOT values. The generated haze product can be used to study the spatial evolution of smoke haze as it is carried by winds from the source to affected regions.