Smoke injection heights from fires in North America: analysis of 5 years of satellite observations
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. We analyze an extensive record of aerosol smoke plume heights derived from observations over North America for the fire seasons of 2002 and 2004–2007 made by the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) instrument on board the NASA Earth Observing System Terra satellite. We characterize the magnitude and variability of smoke plume heights for various biomes, and assess the contribution of local atmospheric and fire conditions to this variability. Plume heights are highly variable, ranging from a few hundred meters up to 5000 m above the terrain at the Terra overpass time (11:00–14:00 local time). The largest plumes are found over the boreal region (median values of ~850 m height, 24 km length and 940 m thickness), whereas the smallest plumes are found over cropland and grassland fires in the contiguous US (median values of ~530 m height, 12 km length and 550–640 m thickness). The analysis of plume heights in combination with assimilated meteorological observations from the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System indicates that a significant fraction (4–12%) of plumes from fires are injected above the boundary layer (BL), consistent with earlier results for Alaska and the Yukon Territories during summer 2004. Most of the plumes located above the BL (>83%) are trapped within stable atmospheric layers. We find a correlation between plume height and the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) fire radiative power (FRP) thermal anomalies associated with each plume. Smoke plumes located in the free troposphere (FT) exhibit larger FRP values (1620–1640 MW) than those remaining within the BL (174–465 MW). Plumes located in the FT without a stable layer reach higher altitudes and are more spread-out vertically than those associated with distinct stable layers (2490 m height and 2790 m thickness versus 1880 m height and 1800 m thickness). The MISR plume climatology exhibits a well-defined seasonal cycle of plume heights in boreal and temperate biomes, with greater heights during June–July. MODIS FRP measurements indicate that larger summertime heights are the result of higher fire intensity, likely due to more severe fire weather during these months. This work demonstrates the significant effect of fire intensity and atmospheric structure on the ultimate rise of fire emissions, and underlines the importance of considering such physical processes in modeling smoke dispersion.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".