Relationship between the viewing angle and the Fire Radiative Power estimation

Fire affects large areas around the world, acting as a modeler of ecosystems and contributing to the accumulation of gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. Nowadays, remote sensing is the main source of data for studying fires, due to the possibility of acquiring global data with constant frequency. However, it is necessary to obtain more information about fires besides the spatial location, such as the amount of biomass burning. Currently, the most widely used method to estimate biomass burning is derived from Fire Radiative Power (FRP), on the assumption that energy emitted as electromagnetic radiation during combustion could be directly related to biomass burning. However, some factors can introduce errors in FRP, such as viewing angle. To determine the influence of viewing angle in FRP, a small scale experiment was conducted using sugarcane straw as biomass. Still, it was determined the biomass burning coefficient for sugarcane. The results showed that FRP tends to decrease according to the increasing of the viewing angle, and, therefore, the viewing angle was considered for the determination of the biomass burning coefficient. It is intended in the future to apply the results in order to estimate biomass burning and emissions from sugarcane pre-harvest burning.

Keywords:
Biomass Burning; Fire Radiative Power; Viewing Angle; Small-scale Combustion Experiment.