Along Track Scanning Radiometer World Fire Atlas: Validation of the 1997-98 Active Fire Product
The 1997 Kyoto Convention revealed to the general public that, industrial and agricultural emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other Greenhouse gases threaten to change the climate rapidly. The Baveno Manifesto reflected the importance to Europe of Global Environment Monitoring by space as a component of the Kyoto Convention implementation. Remote sensing data from the ERS-2 ATSR-2 (Along Track Scanning Radiometer) allows monitoring of agricultural fire and wildfire distribution at a global scale and in near real time.
The ATSR Fire Atlas is the first multi-year Global Fire Atlas ever developed and it will extend from 1995 (launch of ERS-2) to the present. In addition the continuity of data capture, required for long term monitoring, will be ensured by the AATSR instrument onboard ENVISAT up to 2005. Each year of ATSR Fire Atlas requires the processing of 80000 images. All Hot Spots (including gas flares) with a temperature higher than 312 K at night are precisely localized (better that 1km).