With the North American fire season underway, and a record number of acres already burned nationwide, NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite’s three instruments are observing vegetation precursors to fires, along with plumes of smoke and their movement. This data will help scientists piece together clues that deepen their understanding of wildfires.
随着北美火灾季节的到来，全国范围内烧毁的英亩数已创历史新高，美国宇航局的浮游生物、气溶胶、云和海洋生态系统 (PACE) 卫星的三台仪器正在观测火灾前兆的植被、烟雾及其运动。这些数据将帮助科学家拼凑线索，加深对野火的了解。
“The challenge that we have is to take those clues and use them in a meaningful way, so our models of Earth properly represent what’s happening,” said Kirk Knobelspiesse, a remote sensing scientist working on the PACE mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“我们面临的挑战是获取这些线索并以有意义的方式使用它们，以便我们的地球模型正确地代表正在发生的事情，”在马里兰州格林贝尔特 NASA 戈达德太空飞行中心从事 PACE 任务的遥感科学家 Kirk Knobelspiesse 说。
While the satellite, which launched in February 2024, was designed to study Earth’s ocean and atmosphere, it has an unexpected capability: monitoring changes to vegetation . It can also tell us about burn scars, the charred area of land left behind after a wildfire.
虽然这颗卫星于 2024 年 2 月发射，旨在研究地球的海洋和大气层，但它具有意想不到的功能：监测植被变化。它还可以告诉我们烧伤疤痕，即野火后留下的烧焦的土地区域。
“The PACE satellite observes land too, and does it really well,” said Skye Caplan, terrestrial lead for the PACE mission at NASA Goddard. “There is so much to explore with a new hyperspectral data set.”
“PACE 卫星也能观测陆地，而且效果非常好，”美国宇航局戈达德空间站 PACE 任务地面负责人斯凯·卡普兰 (Skye Caplan) 说道。 “新的高光谱数据集有很多东西值得探索。”
The Ocean Color Instrument on board PACE is a hyperspectral instrument, observing the planet in several hundred different wavelengths of visible, near infrared, and ultraviolet light. This breadth of the spectrum allows it to gather data on the health of plants, such as their state of stress, dryness, and their relative pigment balance, all of which assist in identifying high fire-risk areas. Land managers can use this data to distribute resources to help mitigate fire risk.
PACE 上的海洋颜色仪器是一种高光谱仪器，可以用数百个不同波长的可见光、近红外和紫外光来观察地球。这种广泛的光谱使其能够收集有关植物健康的数据，例如植物的应激状态、干燥度和相对色素平衡，所有这些都有助于识别高火灾风险区域。土地管理者可以使用这些数据来分配资源，以帮助减轻火灾风险。
This instrument views the entire Earth daily, with more frequent coverage at high latitudes. With this frequency, on clear days, PACE scientists can quickly assess the aftermath of fires, determining the location and span of a burn scar. Areas that have been burned by wildfire often see increased flood and landslide risk. It’s important to identify these high-risk areas and monitor how they evolve through time, Caplan said.
该仪器每天观察整个地球，在高纬度地区覆盖更频繁。通过这个频率，在晴朗的日子里，PACE 科学家可以快速评估火灾的后果，确定烧伤疤痕的位置和跨度。被野火烧毁的地区经常会面临更大的洪水和山体滑坡风险。卡普兰说，识别这些高风险领域并监控它们随时间的演变非常重要。
Using wavelengths in the ultraviolet range, the Ocean Color Instrument can also monitor the smoke after a fire, along with information on how high in the atmosphere these particles drift — height plays a role in how far the particles travel and the systems they impact. The instrument, with its ultraviolet data, expands on fire observations from other satellite instruments, such as the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer.
利用紫外线范围内的波长，海洋颜色仪器还可以监测火灾后的烟雾，以及有关这些颗粒在大气中漂移的高度的信息——高度在颗粒移动的距离及其影响的系统中发挥着重要作用。该仪器以其紫外线数据扩展了其他卫星仪器的火灾观测，例如可见红外成像辐射计套件和中分辨率成像光谱辐射计。
The other two instruments on PACE , the Hyper-Angle Rainbow Polarimeter 2 and the Spectro-polarimeter for Planetary Exploration one, are rich with information about the composition of aerosols from vastly different regions, said Andrew Sayer, PACE project science lead for atmospheres from the Ocean Color Instrument at NASA Goddard.
美国宇航局戈达德海洋颜色仪器 PACE 大气项目科学负责人 Andrew Sayer 表示，PACE 上的另外两台仪器，即超角度彩虹旋光仪 2 和用于行星探索的分光旋光仪 1，富含有关来自不同地区的气溶胶成分的信息。
By measuring characteristics of light as it reflects off particles in the atmosphere, these two instruments can determine the quantity of these particles, along with their chemical properties, color, size, and shape. Scientists use this information to differentiate smoke from other particulates. Smoke particulates are typically light absorbing — appearing gray, black, or brown in color — and are small in size compared to other aerosols PACE views, such as pollutants and dust.
通过测量大气中颗粒反射的光特性，这两种仪器可以确定这些颗粒的数量，以及它们的化学性质、颜色、大小和形状。科学家利用这些信息来区分烟雾和其他颗粒物。烟雾颗粒通常具有吸光性（呈灰色、黑色或棕色），并且与 PACE 视图中的其他气溶胶（例如污染物和灰尘）相比，其尺寸较小。
Data from PACE will help scientists create more accurate wildfire models and simulate future events, said Knobelspiesse, the satellite’s polarimeter lead. “We’ll be able to then look at different scenarios of emissions in the future and see how smoke that’s created in one location can impact other parts of the Earth system.”
卫星旋光仪负责人 Knobelspiesse 表示，PACE 的数据将帮助科学家创建更准确的野火模型并模拟未来事件。 “我们将能够研究未来不同的排放情况，并了解一个地点产生的烟雾如何影响地球系统的其他部分。”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心，马里兰州格林贝尔特