Global Biomass Burning Estimates For 1980

1980 data on the geographical and temporal distribution of total biomass burned, collected from ground stations in Africa, Asia, and tropical America. Dr. Wei Min Hao and Mei-Huey Liu compiled measurements for four parameters per region. The dataset provides a single year of global fire activity estimates.

Use Cases

• Modeling historical atmospheric carbon emissions by analyzing the 'total amount of biomass burned' parameter across regions.
• Comparing fire types by region using the separate 'amount of biomass burned in forest fires' and 'savanna fires' columns.
• Assessing anthropogenic burning contributions via the 'amount of fuel wood and agricultural residues burned' feature.
• Creating a baseline 1980 map of global fire activity from the geographical distribution data for trend analysis.

Strengths

• Data covers three major continental regions: Africa, Asia, and tropical America.
• Provides four distinct biomass burning parameters for analysis per region.
• Offers a complete annual snapshot for the year 1980.

Limitations

• Contains only one year of data (1980), limiting longitudinal analysis.
• Spatial resolution is coarse at 5x5 degrees, missing local variability.
• Ground station coverage may omit remote areas, introducing geographic bias.

Provenance

Source

LARC_ASDC, NASA Earth Data.

Collection Method

Collected from ground station measurements by Dr. Wei Min Hao and Mei-Huey Liu.

Time Range

1980

Freshness

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Geography

Africa, Asia, and tropical America (Central and South America).