
Video: 10 Years of Fires on Earth Seen From Space - MichaelApproved
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/wildfires-space-nasa
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ajays
That's pretty sweet. The spread of the greenery in the summer, followed by its
retreat in the winter, makes it look like the earth is breathing.

It would be great if the underlying color images are available for download.

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kuahyeow
That's a large swathe of fires in the northern sub Sahara every December. Any
explanation for this ? I found the page below which shows a picture month by
month

[http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003870/index.h...](http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003870/index.html)

edit: found it at
[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/modis-10-overvi...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/modis-10-overview.html)

"The global fire data show that Africa has more abundant burning than any
other continent. MODIS observations have shown that some 70 percent of the
world's fires occur in Africa. During a fairly average burning season from
July through September 2006, the visualizations show a huge outbreak of
savanna fires in Central Africa driven mainly by agricultural activities, but
also driven by lightning strikes."

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Luyt
I guess the majority of these fires are caused by lightning. There are some 16
million lightning storms in the world every year[1], or about 44,000 every
day. An interesting video of lightning seen from the Space Shuttle during
night time orbit of Earth: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6RxE-f2iyQ>

The Wired video is also interesting because it shows the expanding and
contracting areas of frost and vegetation.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning>

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natch
Too fast. They really had to cram it into one minute? Amazingly well done, but
what a pity. Would love to watch at least the YouTube 10 minute limit of this
stuff, if not more.

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grannyg00se
I wonder how much co2 these "tens of millions" of fires emit vs global human
energy consumption.

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dredmorbius
Net-net, probably not much. The fires represent biomass, and at best, with the
oldest living trees, represent carbon sequestered 10,000 years ago. By
comparison, most petroleum deposits were formed from biomass several millions
of years ago. And that is the problem with fossil-fuel based carbon release:
we've returned, in a matter of decades, carbon that was removed from the
biosphere over millions of years.

The mean age of carbon released by forest fires is probably far lower than the
10,000 year maximum. Tree lifecycles typically range in the 100s of years,
shrubs in the decades, and grasslands are perennial.

Too: following a burn, many areas see a greatly accelerated growth of flora,
driven by many characteristics: minerals and nutrients liberated by the burn,
greater incident sunlight, and less competition from old-growth plants.

Of course in the case of ag land clearing, much of this goes out the window.

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dredmorbius
Erm: grasses have an annual cycle. They may be "annuals" (dying each year) or
perennial, but the bulk of their biomass is regenerated annually.

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Cushman
I get a little spooked out by any visualization that makes real life look like
a somewhat more complex Minecraft.

