{"id":24645,"date":"2017-08-04T23:59:47","date_gmt":"2017-08-04T23:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=24645"},"modified":"2017-08-19T16:00:33","modified_gmt":"2017-08-19T16:00:33","slug":"fire-burning-in-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/24645","title":{"rendered":"Wildfire burning in Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 Visible (0.64 \u00b5m) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m) images [click to play animation]<\/p><\/div>\n

* GOES-16 data posted on this page are preliminary, non-operational and are undergoing testing *<\/em><\/p>\n

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) images (above; <\/strong>a zoomed-in version is available here<\/a>)<\/strong><\/em> displayed a subtle hazy signature of a smoke plume along with an intermittent “hot spot” (darker black pixels)<\/em> associated with\u00a0 a small fire — located near the center of the cyan circle — that was burning close to the southwest coast of Greenland on 01 August 2017. The approximate latitude\/longitude coordinates of the fire were 67.87\u00ba N \/ 51.48\u00ba W, a location about halfway between Ilulissat (station identifier BGJN) and Kangerlussuaq (station identifier BGSF) and about halfway between the western edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the west coast .<\/p>\n

Closer views using daily composites of 250-meter resolution Terra and Aqua MODIS true-color Red\/Green\/Blue (RGB) images (from 30 July to 04 August),<\/em> sourced from RealEarth<\/strong><\/a> (below)<\/strong><\/em> indicated that the fire may have started close to 1540 UTC on 31 July — when a small white smoke and\/or cloud feature (just north of the cursor)<\/em> was seen at the fire source location on the Terra image (overpass time<\/strong><\/a>). The Aqua overpass time<\/strong><\/a> was around 1600 UTC.<\/p>\n

\"Daily<\/a>

Daily composites of Terra MODIS true-color RGB images, from 30 July to 04 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>

\"Daily<\/a>

Daily composites of Aqua MODIS true-color RGB images, from 30 July to 04 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Similar daily composite RGB images from Suomi NPP VIIRS (31 July to 04 August)<\/em> are shown below. Note that the initial fire signature was not<\/em> seen on the 31 May VIIRS image, due to the earlier overpass time<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 (1513 UTC) of the Suomi NPP satellite.<\/p>\n

\"Daily<\/a>

Daily composites of Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color RGB images,.from 31 July to 04 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>On 03 August, a 1507 UTC overpass<\/a><\/strong> of the Landsat-8 satellite provided a 30-meter resolution Operational Land Imager (OLI) false-color<\/strong><\/a> RGB image of the fire (below)<\/strong><\/em>. This was the same day that a pilot took photos<\/strong><\/a> of the fire, as reported on the Wildfire Today<\/strong><\/a> site.<\/p>\n

\"Landsat-8<\/a>

Landsat-8 OLI false-color RGB image [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A comparison of one “before” (27 July)<\/em> and two “after” (03 and 05 August)<\/em> Landsat-8 OLI false-color RGB images (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed differences in smoke plume transport as the wind direction changed.<\/p>\n

\"Landsat-8<\/a>

Landsat-8 OLI false-color images on 27 July, 03 August and 05 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>It is possible that this “natural fire” is similar to the Smoking Hills<\/strong><\/a> type of spontaneous combustion that has been observed in the Canadian Arctic (thanks to Ray Hoff, retired UMBC Professor of Physics, for that tip).<\/p>\n

Credit to Mark Ruminski (NOAA\/NESDIS) for first bringing this interesting event to our attention.<\/p>\n

===== 09 August Update =====<\/strong><\/p>\n

The animations of daily Terra and Aqua true-color RGB images (below)<\/strong><\/em> have been extended to 09 August and 08 August, respectively.<\/p>\n

\"Daily<\/a>

Daily composites of Terra MODIS true-color RGB images, from 30 July to 09 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>

\"Daily<\/a>

Daily composites of Aqua MODIS true-color RGB images, from 30 July to 08 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color RGB images from 04-09 August (below)<\/strong><\/em> include VIIRS-detected fire locations plotted in red. The 09 August image showed that smoke from the fire had drifted west-southwestward over the adjacent offshore waters of Davis Strait.<\/p>\n

\"Daily<\/a>

Daily composites of Suomi NPP VIIRS true-color RGB images, from 04-09 August, with fire detection points plotted in red [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n

===== 12 August Update =====<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Landsat-8<\/a>

Landsat-8 OLI false-color images on 03, 05 and 12 August [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>Another overpass of Landsat-8 on 12 August provided a glimpse of the fire burn scar, which appeared as a darker hue of reddish-brown. Note that the fire had burned eastward to the coast, during a day when stronger westerly winds prevailed.<\/p>\n

Related sites:<\/strong><\/p>\n

NASA Earth Observatory<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

NPR<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

ESA Space in Images<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

AGU EOS<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  * GOES-16 data posted on this page are preliminary, non-operational and are undergoing testing * GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 \u00b5m) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m) images (above; a zoomed-in version is available here) displayed a subtle hazy signature of a smoke plume along with an intermittent “hot spot” (darker black pixels) associated with\u00a0 a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":24656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,37,6,74,55,12,53,45,49,71,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aqua","category-arctic","category-fire-detection","category-goes-16","category-landsat","category-modis","category-real-earth","category-redgreenblue-rgb-images","category-suomi_npp","category-terra","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24645"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24756,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24645\/revisions\/24756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}