Arino, O; Casadio, S; Serpe, D (2012). Global night-time fire season timing and fire count trends using the ATSR instrument series. REMOTE SENSING OF ENVIRONMENT, 116, 226-238.

Abstract
Global night-time fire counts for the years from 1995 to 2009 have been obtained by using the latest version of Along Track Scanning Radiometer Top of Atmosphere radiance products (level 1B), and related trends have been estimated. Possible biases due to cloud coverage variations have been assumed to be negligible. The sampling number (acquisition frequency) has also been analysed in detail and proved not to influence our results. The new ATSR World Fire Atlas (WFA) product continuity has been tested by comparing the partially overlapping fire counts time series from the ATSR-2 (on board ERS-2) and the AATSR (on board ENVISAT) missions which showed negligible offsets. The ATSR-WFA products show very good correlation with the TRMM-VIRS and MODIS-Aqua/Terra monthly night-time fire counts. Global night-time fire trends have been evaluated by inspecting the time series of hot spots aggregated a) at 2 degrees x 2 degrees scale; b) at district/country/region/continent scales, and c) globally. The statistical significance of the estimated trend parameters has been verified by means of the Mann-Kendall test. Results indicate that no trends in the absolute number of fire counts can be identified at the global scale, that there has been no appreciable shift in the fire season during the last 14 years, and that statistically significant positive and negative trends are only found when data are aggregated at smaller scales. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

DOI:
0034-4257

ISSN:
10.1016/j.rse.2011.05.025