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added new text to sat. changes section
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acblackford authored Aug 23, 2023
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The reduction in green vegetation cover caused by the wildfire leads to exposure of brighter underlying bare soil. In order to quantify this increase in surface brightness, we examined the monthly mean value of MODIS-derived albedo for the area affected by the Camp Fire event. The monthly mean albedo increased from 0.123 to 0.125 following the fire, or an increase of 0.05. Note that albedo values of 0 and 1 indicate none or all of the incoming sunlight is being reflected back to the atmosphere, respectively. Thus, the alteration of the surface by the wildfire results in a 5% reduction of energy deposited by sunlight onto the land surface. Even though the amount of energy deposited by the sunlight is reduced after the fire, the reduction in green vegetation cover leads to how the deposited energy is utilized. Before the Camp Fire, part of the energy deposited is utilized by green vegetation cover for transpiration. However, after the fire, more of the energy deposited at the surface goes into heating and raising the temperature of the land surface. Thus during the daytime, loss of vegetation caused by the fire could result in an increase in land surface temperature and a reduction of moisture flux to the atmosphere. We examined if such changes in LST were observed following the fire using MODIS-derived LST product. Indeed, we found the mean daytime LST over the fire-affected areas increased by 2.51 K (4.51 ⁰F) following the Camp Fire event.

However, during nighttime, when sunlight is not warming the surface, the change in surface emissivity (efficiency in emitting infrared radiation) caused by the wildfire is the major factor that influences nighttime LST. Generally, green vegetation cover has similar emissivity in comparison to bare ground, dependent on soil wetness. Removal of vegetation can lead to either an increase or reduction in the loss of energy to the atmosphere in the form of infrared radiation and an increase in nighttime LST, depending upon the nature of surface emissivity. We examined the monthly mean value of emissivity and nighttime LST over the fire scar region for periods before and after the fire event. It was found that the mean emissivity for the fire scar area increased minutely from 97.66% to 97.96% and a corresponding jump of 0.335 K (0.639 ⁰F) in nighttime LST.
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The implication of the above-described satellite data analysis is that the Camp Fire event has resulted in substantial changes in land-atmosphere interactions. As discussed above, the changes in vegetation cover lead to higher heat and reduced moisture transport from the land to the atmosphere. These changes over the fire scar region sets-up a sharp contrast in the land-atmosphere exchanges compared to the surrounding region unaffected by the fire. This is similar to contrasts in land/water-atmosphere exchanges associated with land-ocean boundaries and can force atmospheric flow response analogous to the sea breeze. Such a flow response can lead to changes in wind patterns and cloud formation which needs to be further investigated using computer models and additional data analysis.
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