ABSTRACT

Someplace on Earth is burning right now. How do we know? Because NASA satellites observe actively burning fires, charred vegetation, and fire emissions, and relay this information in near-real time to resource managers and scientists around the world. Global satellite observations also provide a detailed account of changes in fire activity in recent decades from human management and climate variability. By combining fire data from satellite observations with sophisticated models of atmospheric transport and chemistry, fire scientists can analyze both the direct and indirect effects of fire on the biosphere, atmosphere, and climate system. In this talk, I will describe three innovative approaches to combine data from different NASA satellites to understand the connections between fire and land use, fire and climate, and fire and climate change. In each case, multiple lines of satellite-based evidence have shed new light on the causes and consequences of fire activity.

About the speaker:
Dr. Douglas Morton is an Earth Scientist in the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory (Code 618) at NASA¹s Goddard Space Flight Center. Dr. Morton studies land use change in tropical forests, including deforestation, forest degradation, and agricultural land uses that replace tropical forest. His research combines in situ, airborne, and satellite remote sensing instruments, including Goddard¹s Lidar, Hyperspectral, and Thermal Airborne Imager (G-LiHT, gliht.gsfc.nasa.gov). He is also part of the research team for the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED, globalfiredata.org), an effort to better understand greenhouse gas emissions and ecosystem impacts of global fire activity. Dr. Morton is actively engaged in the international negotiations aimed at reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (REDD+), and serves as a technical advisor to SilvaCarbon, a U.S. Government initiative to build capacity in tropical forest countries to monitor and manage their forest resources. At Goddard since 2009, Dr. Morton holds a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Maryland, a Master¹s in Forest Science from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and a B.A. in Environmental Science from Dartmouth College.