Researchers report that a burned area dataset for sub-Saharan Africa for the year 2016, generated from medium-resolution satellite images, yielded burned area values up to 80% greater than those from datasets based on coarse-resolution images, largely due to the detection of many fires smaller than 100 ha, which are mostly missed in the coarse-resolution images; additionally, the authors estimated fire carbon emissions to be 1.44 PgC, which is substantially greater than previous estimates.
Article #20-11160: "African burned area and fire carbon emissions are strongly impacted by small fires undetected by coarse resolution satellite data," by Rubén Ramo et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Rubén Ramo, COMPLUTIG - Complutum Tecnologías de la Información Geográfica SL, University of Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares, SPAIN; tel: +34-645082144; email: ruben.ramo@uah.es
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences